Lost Kings
by Lore55
Summary: "The seven kings of the Stone have died. I was sent to this world find the new ones. To protect them." The only problem is, she had no idea where to find them. Hell, she didn't even know their names. OC/undecided
1. Childhood :1

" _The seven kings of the Stone have died. I was sent to this world find the new ones. To protect them." The only problem is, she had no idea where to find them. Hell, she didn't even know their names._

 **Just FYI, this is a total K project rip off.**

* * *

Perhaps it was rude for her to run from the boys, but she couldn't help it.

The little one was nice, he was friendly, he didn't deserve her taking one look at him and shoving past. The biggest one glared at her and she couldn't handle that right then. She couldn't stand other people, she needed a way out.

She ran.

Into the woods, heedless of the shout that echoed behind her. Uncaring of the warning she had heard for ten years about the dangers of the monsters that lived there. She hoped she ran into them. She hoped she never saw civilization again.

Branches scratched her arms and tore at her cheeks, slicing open the soft skin. Her eyes stung but she ran on, until she couldn't run any longer. The ground vanished from under her feet and she went tumbling down the incline, towards the river down bellow.

She shouted, scrabbling for purchase on the rocks and got her hands cut open for her troubles. A bramble bush caught her, tearing apart her dress and her skin. She lay in the thornes for a few minutes, trying to breath. Some of the energy that had been building up in her left, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

It still clawed at her throat, trying to tear its way out of her mouth.

She grit her teeth and climbed out, tears in her eyes and blood on her skin.

The pressure was still there, pounding inside her skull and in her heart. It had been building for a decade and she couldn't take it anymore. That was why she ran from the village, that was why she ran from the boys she stumbled across in the woods.

 _Did you forget what I taught you?_

She flinched away from the phantom's soft voice. She couldn't look at his sad, crimson eyes. She couldn't face him.

She turned away, right into the teeth of a bear.

It growled, low, staring her in the eyes. Sharp teeth, each one longer than her fingers, were bared, threatening her tiny throat.

She lunged.

"Fuck off!" the words were screamed so loud it made her throat sore as she repeated them, over and over, screaming into the air as she tore through the bear. Claws bit into her shoulder but she wrenched them out, the arm snapping back wrong. The great beast caved beneath her tiny fists, glowing soft gold in the shadows of the trees.

She only stopped when it wasn't struggling anymore.

The girl stumbled away from the bloody mess that had once been an apex predator. She couldn't tell where her blood ended and the bears began. Her chest heaved and her shoulders slumped but her hands weren't shaking.

A twig snapped to her left. Her head snapped sideways to see the three little boys she'd run from earlier standing there, staring at her.

She sniffed and rubbed the tears out of her eyes. When had she started crying?

"What're you looking at?" she bared her teeth at him, sure she could taste blood.

The littlest one, a tiny scrap with black hair stuffed under a straw hat of all things, was staring at her with utmost awe. Which really only confused the girl. She was totally covered in blood with a smushed bear at her feet, and she knew very well what her eyes looked like. It should have been a demonic image.

So why was the little one smiling so wide.

"That was so cool!" he shouted. He flung himself at her but the tallest of the trio, the one with the freckles, grabbed him around his middle and hauled him back.

"I guess," she was unconvinced. It was violent and bloody. Not cool.

"How'd you do that?" the awe was absent from the freckled boy. In its place was suspicion.

She shrugged.

"I'm golden," she said, like it was obvious. Then added, "And I was burning. Goodbye."

She turned and walked away, leaving the boy gawking at her back.

* * *

The heart rate monitor was quiet in the background, a reminder of the life that he still clung to. He was old and grey and they had known it was coming for some time.

That didn't make the pain in her heart lessen.

Across the bed from her stood his oldest friend, his once long silver hair now much shorter. Each other them, his closest confidant and his only granddaughter, held a hand. They were old, but the strength still in them was there. Callouses, from many years of work and fighting rubbed against her finger tips, equally hard.

She could not recall a time in her life when she had had soft hands.

Even on his deathbed her grandfather held a sort of elegance, an unbending pride that shone through even now. The sickness had ravaged away some of his muscle and all of his fat but the girl would put good money on him still being able to cut down anyone who stood in his way.

He was a tough old man, he had fought through a war that ravaged the whole planet and worked afterwards to unite the country and bring it into an era of technological advancement and peace. They stood amidst the crowning jewel of his accomplishments. The hospital towered over every structure in the city, a hundred stories high if not more. He had worked to build it with his own hands and now here he was.

Dying in it.

"Leave us," he commanded, abruptly. She thought he was talking to her, but no, it was Adolf, with his silver hair and his silver eyes, smiled kindly at her and left the room. His cheeks were wet.

"Grandfather," she said softly. He managed to sit up. She would have offered to help but she knew he wouldn't accept. Prideful and stubborn and utterly devoted to his people.

"Don't start that now, Kaida," he warned, turning his eyes on her. Gold, sharp as an eagles. Stars glittered fiercely in them. "I don't need you to be the kind and caring granddaughter you aren't."

She snorted. "You'd rather I be cold and rude?" she challenged. Under any other circumstances she would have turned a smile on him. Now, she couldn't seem to manage it.

"If that will make you stronger, then yes," he reached around his bedside and picked up his sword, a long, beautiful thing, from the other side. "I need you to be stronger for this. Stronger than you were when you were my Golden Child, stronger than you were when you fought for the Lion King," he ignored her flinch. "I am dying now. All the Kings are dying. The Slate won't stay here anymore and there's no one where it's going that knows a damn thing about it."

"Grandfather," she said again, with more force this time. She did not like where this was going. He managed to use one hand to unsheathe the sword. The black casing clattered to the hospital floor. Cold steel glinted in the overhead light. Outside the window the sky train rushed passed, filled with people on their way.

"You need to find the new Kings, Kaida. Find them, and protect them."

There was a flash and she fell to the ground, her throat cut open. It was fast. She didn't fight against it.

Death came for her, and it was cold. So cold, so horribly, horribly cold. She fell into it, a frozen lake that washed over her and dragged her and her cold, broken heart down with it. The undercurrent was inescapable. Blood rushed into her mouth, filling it and spilling past. Her neck didn't hurt, it just felt cold.

A man stood in front of her, in that cold, dark place. And a woman. And a boy, and a girl, and a baby. They were all the same person, a million people, a billion faces all layered on top of each other. They all smiled at her, with eyes that rippled through color.

It stopped, abruptly, on her own face. Her eyes were black as pitch, the whites swallowed by darkness. She raised a hand, slowly. The other her did the same. Their fingertips brushed, softly. Those were not her hands. Her hands were calloused and hard. These were soft as velvet.

The other her cracked a wider grin, showing teeth, and the world shattered around her. The darkness gave way and she plummeted into light.

She sucked in a sharp breath but didn't move out of her sheets. She didn't sit up, she didn't scream. She just looked up at the window in her bedroom. She wrapped the blankets around her and closed her eyes again.

Still, she was cold.

* * *

"Are you feeling better this morning, Kari?" Makino asked kindly.

Katja Kari, who was in fact Kokujoji Kaida and found her name rediculous in both lives, shrugged. She looked up at the kind woman through her long lashes and shoved food into her mouth so she wouldn't have to answer. Half the town was sure she had gone crazy last week when she had disappeared for two days and come back covered in blood and gore. The other half thought she had always been crazy.

Kari didn't talk to people a lot. In fact she could count on one hand the number of times she had willingly started a conversation with another human being since her death. Most folk figured she was mute.

Eddie Murphy, the old man who lived down the street, said that her birthmark cursed her to be a mute. The jagged line that sliced across her throat was nothing more than a reminder of all that she had lost.

People, no matter where you went, were stupid. Kari wanted nothing to do with them, but she needed them if she was to fulfill her mission. She couldn't find the Kings and protect them if she didn't figure out where they were, and she couldn't do that without asking people if they knew crazy strong folks with magic powers.

As small as she was now, she couldn't protect them even if she did find them, though, so talking was a moot point.

Makino handed her a glass of juice without needing to be asked, and Kari mumbled what sounded like a 'thanks'.

Makino was a kind woman. She didn't ask Kari to pay when she ate, not that she could have if she tried, and she didn't pressure her to tell her why she had abruptly run into the woods and destroyed not only her own perfect skin but also a massive bear and quite a few trees.

She also didn't look at Kari like she was going to snap and stab her with a fork.

Kari could appreciate that.

She even said a farewell before she hopped down from the stool and walked out of the bar, into the street outside. It wasn't really busy, but there were enough people that she could disappear in the tide of movement.

How she longed for the vast anonymity of a city of a million people.

She slipped neatly between the legs of the grown up until she could go running into the woods, out of sight and out of mind.

* * *

Luffy squinted at her, leaning in close to her face.

Kari blinked at him. He was always weird, but this was pushing it. He was being _quiet_ , and that was worrying.

She had just opened her mouth to ask what was wrong when he leaned in and closed the distance between his mouth and her nose.

"Um," she told his chin.

He pulled back to award her with a sunny smile.

"What was that?"

"I saw the grown ups do it in town!" Luffy proclaimed. "Dadan says that that's what a boy does when he likes a girl. He kisses her!"

That was probably the cutest thing she had ever heard. Kari's eyes softened and for the first time in a decade she smiled for real. Her tiny, broken heart warmed and she pulled Luffy into her arms, hugging him tight.

He laughed, delighted, and flung his rubber arms around her small body.

They stayed like that for a while, just Kari soaking up the warmth of Luffy's hug and the knowledge that she was cared for. They didn't even pull away when there was a loud exclamation from the door of the 'super secret fort'.

Kari looked over Luffy's shoulder to see the other two had come to stand in the doorway. They're staring at her, Ace with his brows drawn tight and a scowl on his face, pulling his mouth down. Sabo's expression is bewildered, with an underline of worry to his stretched smile.

They don't jump apart, her and Luffy. She knows its innocent and Luffy is too innocent to think to leave her arms. Even if he wasn't he was touch starved as fuck and probably wouldn't let go anyhow.

"What are you doing?" Ace asks. More like demands. His arms cross, his fists are tight. It's cute, with his freckled face all scrunched up. He was probably jealous that he wasn't the one getting the hug.

Ace was funny like that. He was tough, and would reject any offering of affection, but Kari had seen the signs. When he did something flashy in his little fights with Sabo and Luffy he would look over at her for approval. When he found a piece of metal that looked cool he cleaned the crap off of it and gave her shiny gifts from the dump, never meeting her eyes.

He was cute, in an angry little kid way.

"Hugging," she said, shrugging.

"But you never hug," Sabo said. Which was true. But Luffy had done something special today.

"It's because I kissed her," Luffy said, quite proud. Kari watches Ace's face change color and he draws himself up, red.

"You what?!" he yelled. All the birds in the tree took flight and Kari cringed.

"On the nose," she added, like that will placate him.

Sabo frowned and, in a certainty only a child can possess, said "You're only supposed to kiss girls you're gonna marry when you grow up."

Kari doesn't quite know what she expects to hear, but it sure as shit isn't the haughty sniff that comes from the boy who had tightened his arms around her when his brothers started yelling at him.

"Then I'll marry her when I'm all big!"

"...excuse me?" she did not agree with this.

"You can't marry her!" Ace was still yelling, his face getting so red it was hard to find his freckles anymore.

"Why not?" Luffy shot back, pouting at Ace over his shoulder. The older child sputters.

"Because I didn't say yes?" Kari offered.

"Because- because you're too little to marry her! She'd never marry a squirt like you! You're way to weak!" Ace lunged at them then, grabbing Luffy by one arm and trying to yank him away. Luffy wrapped the other one around her like the snake in the jungle book, threatening to break her ribs. She gasps for breath.

"I'll get stronger and then she'll marry me!"

"No, I'll be the strongest person ever and I'll marry her!"

And now she knew how Olive Oyl felt in every Popeye cartoon ever.

"Hey!" Sabo must have felt left out, "Who says I can't marry her!"

"I do!" Luffy and Ace chroused before glaring at each other.

"I'm the only one who kissed her!" Luffy snapped, tearing his arm free of Ace's grip at last.

Kari struggled to pry Luffy's other arm off of her throat. She could finally breathe against when she found herself in an ASL sandwich. Ace kissed her right cheek, Sabo kissed her left, and Luffy made made her a burrito when he kissed her nose.

Deep in her chest her heart started flum-flumpin' away. Her pale eyes got wide. It wasn't the small fluttering that proved she lived. It wasn't the pounding ache that gripped her chest with the loss of her King.

It was beating, beating blood and life and for the first time in fifteen years she felt like she was actually alive.

"Luffy! She's crying! What did you do?!"

* * *

"Take a walk with me!"

It wasn't so much a question as a demand that he yelled at her face. Still, the girl who had once been Kaida stop spinning her baton around long enough to tuck it under her arm and trail after him. She fell into step right after him.

It only took half a minute before she noticed that something was up. Ace was never relaxed, not really, but he usually wasn't this tense. Especially in the woods, in his domain he moved with confidence. This time there was something different.

Kari stepped up, closer, letting their arms brush.

"You okay?" she asked, surprising herself with her actual concern.

 _You always had a penchant for bastards._

Her eyes flickered to the phantom, and his half smile. She could almost meet his eyes these days. He turned from her, the chain in his pocket clinking.

She looked back at Ace. He didn't look back at her.

"This way," he grumbled, climbing over a log. Kari hopped over it with easy grace that a ten year old shouldn't have had. But, she was cheating, so that didn't count.

They ended up on a cliff, looking out over the sea. Kari had seen the ocean before, and this sight wasn't breathtaking as it should have been. It was beautiful, of course. The sea was sapphire, the sky was burning and the sun drowned in the distance. But, she had more on her mind than the scenery.

A glance at Ace and she knew she wasn't the only one. Ace sat down on the tall grass, drawing his knees in his arms. Kari sat cross legged far enough that they didn't touch, but close enough she could grab him if he did something stupid. It had been too dark to see before, but now she could notice the puffy redness lining his eyes.

"Ace?" she said his name, softly. He closed his dark eyes off from the world.

"What if- What would you think if, if Gold Roger had a son?" he asked, out of the blue. Kari's brows furrowed. That was a weird question. She had the brief thought of 'he's an orphan who wants a famous father', before her phantom snorted.

 _You're smarter than that, Golden Girl._

"Don't -" _Call me that._ "Know why you're asking stuff like that, Ace."

"Just answer the question!" his little hands curled into fists.

Kari sighed. She thought, though she only needed long enough to formulate the sentence.

"I would feel sad for him, I guess," she shrugged. When Ace's head snapped her way she went on. "His dad would be dead, and more than that, people are mean. They would never let him forget that Gol D. Roger was a pirate, that the world hated him, even if the kid had nothing to do with that. People are too stupid to understand that it's our own acts the define us. Not the sins or the saints that make up our heritage."

After all, a King could be born in the slums or silver sheets, and only the Slate would know.

Ace's small head landed on her shoulder. Kari wrapped an arm around his little body and pulled him in while the sun finally vanished in the waves.


	2. Childhood : 2

**I fixed a few mistakes in the last chapter!**

 **amgs: Thank you! Yeah, Kari has a long way to go! I'm glad you're excited for this!**

 **Treavellergirl: Now that's something you'll have to wait and see!**

* * *

People often didn't give Luffy enough credit. He was, admittedly, a dumbass without a lick of common sense, and anything he couldn't understand on his own was never going to be understood, but people who didn't see past that didn't see what he really was.

Which was, frighteningly perceptive of emotions.

He was also exceedingly blunt.

Kari didn't know why then, she was so surprised that he rolled over, propped himself on his arms, and asked her, "Why are you sad?"

She expected Ace to fling himself across her stomach to smack Luffy for being so blunt. When he didn't, she looked over at him. He was staring at her too, frowning deeply. Sabo, for once, had lost his smile.

Oh.

 _They worry about you_ , her phantom said. Wind didn't touch his burning hair.

"That's-" how did she explain this to a child. "Have you ever loved somebody, with all of your heart? Have you ever loved someone so much that whenever you see them your ribs feel too small and just sitting with them makes it feel like, like you'll never need to eat again because all you need is for them to be there?" she wasn't looking, so she couldn't say if her nodded or not. She sat up, crossing her legs and gripping her hands in front of her.

Faded, on the back of her left hand, was a mark she had been born with. A flash of a flame on her skin. The mark of her King.

"Sometimes, when you love someone with everything you have, and they die, your heart dies with them."

Her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes tight.

 _Your heart isn't dead_ , the dead man reminded her, _you felt it beat_.

She breathed out, straightened up and tossed a smile over her shoulder.

"So you see, because of this the only man I can ever marry is the one I acknowledge as strong enough to be my king."

She didn't know it at the time, but that only added fuel to a fire that would reshape the world.

* * *

Kari ducked the swinging pipe easily, watching the numbers fly by in front of her eyes. Length, width, density, velocity, force, weak points, pressure before breakage. She blinked, tapped the joint on the back swing and watched the two pieced fly apart on either side of her. Ace growled in frustration and flung himself at her.

The girl was not like him though. She was perfectly in control when she played with the boys.

They weren't like the bear, that was only there for her fury. They were young and soft, not matter how tough they pretended to be and she couldn't stand the idea that she might hurt them. That they might grow frightened of her if she let herself slip.

She grabbed Ace's wrist and threw him easily over her hip. He went tumbling across the ground.

Luffy laugh from where he was sitting in a tree, high above their heads. Sabo at least had the decency to only snicker a bit.

"Shut up!" Ace snarled up at them. He was so temperamental. At least now she had an idea why. It was the chip on his shoulder.

"How'd you get so strong?" Luffy asked, kicking his legs back and forth.

Kari shrugged and flashed her eyes at him. With their change the numbers returned, and the strength in her limbs multiplied. It was a final 'gift' from her grandfather. Before he cut her throat.

"I have to be."

Ace scoffed. "Why? You live in town. That guy takes care of you. You don't have to do anything."

"Chevy," she correctly mildly. "He says he's my uncle," not that she saw him more than a few times a month.

"Kari has to be strong if she's going to marry the pirate king," Sabo teased.

The girl snorted. "I have to be strong so I can protect the kings."

"Protect me from what?" Luffy smiled guilelessly at her, "when I'm king of the pirate's, I'll be the strongest person alive!"

Kari's brows furrowed. "I don't know yet," she confessed, "But I know that I have to protect the Kings from something."

Sabo caught her phrasing, even when the other two were in the middle of an argument over who would be Pirate King.

"Kings? How many do you think there are going to be?" it was spoken lightly, but he really did look interested. Kari considered how much to tell him, then wondered what harm there would be in telling a bunch of children a story from another lifetime.

"Seven," she said with certainty. "The first King will be immortal, made of silver and able to fly. The second King will be golden, he will walk among the stars and bring out the best in those around him. The third will be red, made of fire that will burn all but those he lives. The forth king will be blue, and he will cut down all who stand in his opposition. After that, green, an electric king that can get anywhere, no matter how thick the walls or strong the locks. Then grey, a King with the ultimate defense."

"That's only six."

Kari hadn't realized Ace had been paying attention to her. She looked over to see he and Luffy had stopped bickering, and she had their full attention.

"The seventh King… I don't know," she knew that she hated them, though. It was there fault that her world fell apart. It was their fault that she was here instead of where she belonged, burning brightly with the fire of her King.

The seventh King, the Colorless King-

"You're real smart," Luffy said sagely.

"Someone has to make up for you dumbasses," she retorted, no heat behind her words. She swallowed back some of the pain that reared whenever she thought about her mission. She rubber her wrist, the right one, and looked down at the marking on it.

"The Silver King has already manifested," she told them, showing the trio a stylized silver heart that flash across the back of her right wrist.

Sabo leaned in close to see it. "A tattoo?"

"Sort of. Every King can infuse his power in his trusted followers, his Clansmen. That power manifests in a mark on their skin. And on mine, I guess. I'm not a clansmen for the silver King, and I can't use his aura," just her Grandfathers Gold and her true Kings Red, "But this is on me. I guess because I'm connected to the Slate. The magic rock that gives them their power."

"Someone hug me," she said abruptly. Ace and Sabo startled, but Luffy reacted right away, flinging himself through the air to grab her. Kari caught him and hugged the boy too her. Luffy gave such good hugs.

Warm arms slid around her shoulders, and blue fabric slipped into her vision. Ace and Sabo came in from either side, hugging her close.

Between the three of them, Kari could almost relax.

* * *

The house was quiet. The house was always quiet. Chevy only showed up when he needs to do laundry, or get something from the house. He didn't talk much to Kari, and she didn't care enough to talk to him. The only people she talked to are wild boys who live in the woods.

Kari could only take the quiet for so long before it becomes a crushing weight that she cannot bear.

This time, there is no escape from it.

It echoes around her, beating in on her ears and Luffy, who had fallen asleep on her couch, will not break it. Ace is too busy glaring at the wall to do anything. And Sabo…

Sabo had left them.

She sat on the chair, her heart in her throat, choking her.

Sabo, sweet, strong, loyal Sabo had left them for a life amongst the nobility, among the people he hated. She didn't understand. She couldn't comprehend why he would do that. After their weeks, months together, after all the time that had spent traipsing through the woods, after all the days, from sun up to sun down they had sparred. Why? Why he do this?

She wrapped her arms around her legs.

Betrayal stung her eyes and poisoned her tongue.

"I hate him," she told Ace.

"I do too."

They were both lying.

* * *

It was outside the fire that she first met Dragon. Edge town was garbage, as much as Grey Terminal, but with the fire burning she had gotten into her mind to go steal something of value. She didn't go out to warn anyone, she wasn't interested in being a savior.

Luffy and Ace, who had been distant as it was since Sabo left, had disappeared a few days ago. They had left her behind.

Kari turned a corner into a dark street, ducking out of the way of a pair of masked guards before she was caught. How curious that they had those masks ready. Perhaps they were more prepared than she gave them credit for.

The pair was laughing at something. Kari spat at their backs before she turned on her way and froze.

She knew the curly blond hair, and the scar on the back of the tiny hand that was clutching at a cloaked adult.

"Sabo," she breathed name.

The man looked over at her and so did Sabo, tears streaming down his face. He was covered in scraps and bruises.

"Kari," he recognized her, and started crying harder. "Kari! You have to find Ace and Luffy! The nobles- they set the fire! They're going to burn it all down, and everyone inside! You have to find my brothers!"

Kari's hand curled into fists. Her mind was racing.

"I'll find them," she promised. "But once I have, I'm going back for you, and you better tell me what the hell is going on!"

She didn't have time to think about who the man was, or to contemplate the strange tattoos on his face. She ran as fast as her little legs could carry her until she stumbled in front of the Great Gate. She wasn't the only one there. Guards, with rifles, had taken up residence in front of it.

One the other side someone was screaming to be let in.

If they didn't open them for dying people, they wouldn't open them for a little girl. So she did what she was good at. She beat them, the same way she did the bear, leaving little more than bloody pulps in her wake.

"How the hell do I get this thing open?" she grumbled, laying her hand on the metal. It was hot. If she was anyone else it would have burnt her.

 _You know how_ , her phantom told her. She felt the warmth of his power surge through her. It was not the Gold Aura of her grandfather, a boost of her own abilities, nor her own power as a Strain, the one that showed her the numbers.

It was hot, filling her up and spilling out, boiling under her skin until flames licked up her arms and swallowed her body whole.

She blinked, looked at the numbers on the door, and sunk her hands into the metal. Steam rose around her wrists and she grunted, gritting her teeth. She dug in her feet and pulled so hard that the metal groaned and creaked under the pressure.

The two huge steel doors of the Great Gate went flying behind her, decimating the buildings at her back. The reek of burning garbage and human bodies washed over her, stinging her nose and burning her eyes.

People, poor people, young people, old people stumbled in after the destruction. There was only a second where they stared at the tiny girl who had ripped apart the obstacle, and was by all means burning herself.

"Thank you," one of them men whispered. Tears slid down his cheeks. He wasn't the only one who was crying when they spilled into the city, dozens of desperate men, women and children rushed into Edge Town.

Kari took a breath, regretted it, and plunged into the fire.

She wasn't how she used to be. She wasn't a Clansmen if the Red King, and by all means she shouldn't have had any of his power left in her veins, let alone carried the mark that now glowed brightly on her left hand. Yet, here she was, Red Aura burning across her skin and shielding her from the fire.

"You were right," she told the phantom. "This power. It's for protecting."

 _That's why I used it to die for you._

Kari ran harder, even when she knew she couldn't outrun a ghost. Fire was everywhere, tents were ashes and corpses littered the ground. She focused, numbers flying past her. Where were they?

Where were her boys?

Someone screamed to her left. Someone she knew.

Kari spun, stumbling in her haste and bolted towards Ace. She past Dadan and the mountain bandits along the way, flying by like the wind itself had possessed her. The scar on his throat throbbed, her hand burned.

She had punched Bluejam before she was even aware of the gun in his hand. She barely heard the rapport, barely felt the pain in her abdomen before it cauterized itself.

She could only hear the blood in her ears, could only feel the fire in her blood. She could only see red. Red, the energy that danced across her skin. Red the frantic gleam in her eyes. Red, the hair is her phantom, her King.

Red, the blood leaking out of Bluejams neck. His head smoldered in the fires some twenty feet away from them.

Slowly, and turn around to look at Luffy and his brother. They were hurt, like Sabo had been. Covered in bruises, cuts and burns. All because of the nobility.

 _Did you know about this world, Grandfather?_ She turned her eyes to the heavens, the numbers vanishing as the energy left her body. _Did you know about the scum that controls it? Is that why the Dresden Slate chose to come here? Is that why it brought it's changes, the way it did to our world?_

"We should go," she said softly. She wasn't looking at Ace or Luffy. She feared what she might find. "Sabo sent me. We should go find him."

"Sabo?" Luffy struggled to his feet, swaying in place. He was in bad shape.

Ace, at least, had the energy to make a face.

"Why would Sabo do that?" He grumbled. Kari shrugged.

"I don't know, but he looked pretty touched up. We should hurry, before someone drags him back to his parents."

"I- I wanna see Sabo again," Luffy's started watering and Kari, realizing he wasn't frightened by her display, opened her arms to scoop him into them. It was awkward, Luffy was almost as tall as she was these days.

"That can wait," Kari wondered when Dadan has gotten there. She had passed them what felt like years ago. The large woman reached down and picked up Ace, who complained but didn't fight.

"We gotta get Sabo," Luffy argued. "He's hurt!"

"Someone was helping him," Kari admitted. "A man, with a tattoo on his face."

Dadan tensed up. She distinctly looked at none of them.

"Then he'll be fine. We need to get you boys home. We'll find Sabo after that. "


	3. Childhood : 3

**Sort of a sad chapter, but here we go anyways!**

 **Reviews!**

 **amgs: Yes! I love hearing what you think, even if you don't think you're that good at riddles! Who do you think will be which King? And I'll work on giving Kari more hugs!**

 **Cake bird: Awesome! K is like, one of my favorite anime ever, I just finished reading K SIDE: RED, and my heart hurts for Mikoto all over again T - T**

* * *

Kari was not a patient person. Neither was Ace, or Luffy. It was no surprise that they were ready to go sneaking into the palace within three days. They didn't pack much, they didn't so much prepare as they acted.

Kari lead the way, keeping a close eye on Luffy. Ace could be quiet if he had to. His brother, on the other hand…

Kari boosted Ace over the high wall, sending him soaring over with a golden boost. Luffy was next, and she went last, slipping soundlessly to the ground. Ace and Luffy were good at this becase of them years that had spent hunting.

Kari was good at this because of the years she had spent as an Usagi. She had never understood why her Grandfather decided he wanted his elite force of super sneaky soldiers to wear gold rabbit masks and a literal fluffy tail on the outside of their long robes. There was nothing menacing or powerful about bunny rabbits. Maybe he thought it would make them lucky when he sent them into the devil's den.

Maybe he laughed at them after they had left the room. Whatever the reason was, she had been raised to be an elite guard for the Gold Clan, which someone had named Timeless Palace. Until her defection and dissolution.

They slipped through the hallways, past few guards and even less nobles. A little boy their age, with a ginger bowl cut, wondered by them with a maid in uniform. It was quiet, desolate.

Sabo didn't belong in a place like this.

"How do we find him in such a big place?" Ace asked, looking up at the vaulting ceilings. Tall portraits of pointy faced family glowered down at them, disapproving of the mongrels that walked on their fine carpets.

"I have no idea," Kari confessed. "I was just going to check doors. Or go through air vents."

"He's this way," Luffy said, walking away from them. Kari and Ace exchanged a Look before the older boy shrugged. It wasn't like they had a better idea.

They followed Luffy.

Kari didn't know how he did it, but Luffy managed to lead them right where they needed to go. He only needed to open one door and step inside before they were standing in the doorway, looking at a little boy covered in bandages.

Sabo sat in the window box, his back to the trio. He was staring, not out into the world, but at a wall of boards that covered the glass. Even in his sleeping clothes, a frilly white nightgown, it was easy to see the white wrapped around almost all of his body. Kari could only see one of his ears.

"I said I'm not hungry," he didn't even turn to look at them.

"Those are words that I never thought I would hear from one of you boys," Kari crossed her arms over her chest.

Sabo spun around, falling right out of the box and onto the floor. He yelped, curling in on himself. In an instant Ace was at his side, his resentment gone when he picked the blond boy up off the floor. His small hands were careful when he lifted the young noble up, supporting him with his own damaged arms.

Kari was too busy holding Luffy back to help. The seven year old was already sobbing, trying to reach their lost brother.

With her free hand Kari shut the door and locked it.

Luffy wiggled out of her arm and launched himself into Sabo's arms. The blond caught him with a heavy grimace. Kari would give him points for not screaming.

She walked over to them, her ears open for someone coming at them.

"Hey, Luffy, watch it!" Ace tried to pry him off, but it was no use. Luffy was stuck fast, crying all over Sabo's chest. His hat fell back over his shoulders.

Kari shook her head at the trio and slumped against the tall bedpost. Her bitterness had only ebbed away a little bit. Enough not to go slap him straight off.

Ace finally managed to get Luffy to let go of Sabo. He held him off the ground to try and keep him in place. Kari took the thrashing boy from Ace's arm, wincing when he smacked her in her face.

"Lu, stop it now. We need to talk to Sabo," she soothed, cradling him in her arms. He slumped, whining loudly before he finally gave in.

"I don't care why Sabo left, as long as he comes back now," he grumbled, turned around in her arms. Kari's heart melted a little. Luffy really was a cute kid, innocent and kind and far too good for his own safety.

Kari managed to wrangle him onto the bed, massive and so soft she thought she would sink all the way through. She flopped over into the silk sheets and lifted herself up to wave the other two over. Ace clambered on and together he and Kari grabbed Sabo under the arms and lifted him up with them.

He looked tired, like this. His blue eyes less bright, his rosy cheeks lost their soft glow.

"Why'd you leave?" Luffy leaned against her, his small rubber body tiny on the massive bed. They all fit and there was still enough room for two full grown adults. Wealth could not justify something this large.

Sabo looked down. Ace finally lost his temper and punched his arm, eliciting a yelp from him.

Kari frowned, but she couldn't reprimand him for doing something she wanted to.

"Tell us!" Ace snapped.

Sabo swallowed loudly and closed his eyes.

"My parents- they said I had to stay here and, and be a good son or else they would-" his voice cracked, "They would have you guys killed."

The anger, the frustration, it all washed out of her in a wave.

Her eyes softened. "Oh, Sabo. You were protecting us."

He had gone back to a place he had hated, back to people he despised and a life he couldn't bear to live, in order to protect them. He was suffering for their sake.

She squeezed Luffy and hid her tears in his hair. Her heart beat loud, strong, and _loved_.

"You should have told us," Ace growled at him. It was true, he should have told them, but she didn't blame him for keeping quiet. If they thought for any reason he still wanted them she didn't think a single one of them would have stopped trying to get to him. And then, his sacrifice and suffering would have been in vain. Nobles, after all, had no qualms with murdering other people. Even children.

 _Not so different from where we came from, is it_? _That is what lead you to my doorstep._

Kari didn't respond. The ghostly king was right.

"It's okay now," Kari said softly, slowly lifting her wet eyes. "We're going to figure this out. Together."

"How?" Sabo asked, rubbing his eyes. "What can we do?"

There was silence before Ace spoke up. "We could fake your death. They wouldn't look for a dead person, right?"

"Yeah…"

"But, he wouldn't be able to stay with us," Kari said softly, turning around Luffy in her arms to see his brothers better. "Everyone knows Sabo. If he stayed they'd see, and it would be pointless."

Silence descended. Luffy sniffled in her arms. She didn't know if he was sad or happy.

This was so stupid. They were he boys, she should be able to protect them from anything. Why? If she was supposed to find and protect the Kings, why couldn't she protect three little boys? What good was she? Had her death meant nothing?

Dadan couldn't protect them either, and Garp was useless. He didn't even bother to raise the two that were his! Kari couldn't help them. The adults in their lives couldn't help them.

 _The adults_ in _your life._

Kari's head snapped sideways, she sucked in a sharp breath and met crimson eyes for the first time in a decade.

A smile flashed across a face that wasn't really there. Kari spun around to look at Sabo, who had turned curious eyes on her.

"Sabo, that man who was with you, who was he?"

* * *

One should never underestimate a seven year olds ability to find trouble. Luffy was like a trouble magnet. They didn't have to do all that much to find them. All they really did was set Luffy loose looking for him, beat up a couple of thugs who didn't like Luffy looking for him, and found themselves in audience with a man named Dragon.

Fucking Dragon.

Who named these people?

She was pretty sure that, if he hadn't seen them scuffling and shouting outside of the building with his thugs, they wouldn't have have found him in the first place.

He wasn't the only person around that Kari recognized. Half the citizens of Grey Terminal seemed to be there, and all of them were overjoyed to see the children.

Kari thought that was insane, given that they spent half their time mugging these grown ups. But, almost every person stopped to greet them, to express how happy they were that the quartet had gotten out of the fire. Even more than that, they were happy to see the blond that had disappeared.

It was probably the most surreal moment of her life.

"What are you kids doing here?" Dragon asked, shutting the door to the hallway and cutting off the never ending stream of people outside. He pulled down his hood, revealing dark hair that fell to his shoulders.

"We need your help," Luffy said, putting himself in front of the other three. "The king won't let Sabo go and he can't come with us because Sabo is too good and we can't pretend to kill him and keep him because then they'll still see him because he's here and no one else will do anything!"

There was a beat of silence. To his credit, Dragon didn't so much as blink as the word vomit dropped at his feet.

"We can't keep him," said a man in the corner, "He's too recognizable. Even if his death was faked, someone could recognize him."

Kari decided she didn't like him. He was weird, already, but his emotionless deninior and the fact that he was _literally_ half white and half orange set her skin wrong. And, he made a decent point.

Dragon grimaced. "He's a child."

"He's a noble child. We can't take the chance to draw attention to us yet, sir."

Kari worked her jaw. "So your only problem is that he's recognizable as a prince?" she surmised. Though he didn't look happy with the fact, Dragon nodded at her. "His going to change a lot once he hits puberty, but facial recognition won't change that much… unless we make it."

"Kari?" Ace looked at her funny. Dragon frowned.

She swallowed thickly, her stomach turning.

"Sabo," her voice was soft, "If I do something horrible, will you forgive me?"

Warmth crawled under her skin, slithering inside the veins on her hand. The phantom shifted into her peripheral vision.

 _I gave you that power to protect,_ he said.

 _That's what I'm going to do._

"Of course I would, but what are you planning?" Sabo just looked confused. No weariness, no fear. Gently, Kari cupped his cheek.

"Don't scream," she said sofly. Understanding flickered across Dragon's face.

"Wait-" he moved towards them, but it was too late.

Sabo crumpled to the ground, clutching his face. A loud keening sound escaped his throat, choked down. Kari closed her fist on the fire that danced across her fingers, her eyes a soft shade of red.

"Are you insane?!" Dragon swept between them, catching Sabo's hands and prying them away from his face. The little boy looked up at him, his left eye unharmed even when a quarter of his face blackened with the burn. It was horrible, but he didn't scream. None of them did.

"I can't go back there," Sabo bit the words out, looking straight at Dragon. "I would rather die than continue to be a noble!"

Dragon drew back, horror flashing across his face before he schooled it. There was something else in his eyes. Admiration, maybe. He looked over his shoulder at the man whose colorscheme split straight down the middle.

"Go, find a doctor, and tell everyone that we're leaving immediately."

Kari reached over and plucked Sabo's hat off of his head, wordlessly passing it to Ace.

"There were some kids that died in the Grey Terminal," the eldest of the brothers said, turning the hat over in his hands. "Their bodies are already crisped. If we make it look like Sabo, that'll be it, right?"

Dragon sighed through his nose, looking down at the next generation. Kari couldn't tell what he thought of them. She certainly thought they were insane.

"Yes. I figure you can manage that," his eyes flickered to Kari. She met his gaze defiantly.

"We can. You'll take care of Sabo, right?"

He nodded at her.

Kari found herself offering Sabo a watery smile. Sabo smiled back, like she hadn't just burnt off part of his face. Like he wasn't in unimaginable pain.

"I'll meet you again," he promised. "We'll all meet on the seas!"

* * *

Ace would deny later on that he cried as hard as Luffy did when they set the little boat in the path of the Celestial Dragon, and watched it go up in flames.

Kari watched, her tears dry and her heart beating strong inside her ribs.


	4. What Was and What Is : 1

**Ollah: Yeah! I love that anime ^^**

 **Dramatic: It's weird, you did name 4 of the 7 kings I'm using, and two of them were right! Nice!**

 **Telephath98: Thanks!**

* * *

The whiteboard blurred at the front of the classroom as her eyes lost their focus for the umpteenth time that day. The girl grimaced and rubbed her dark eyes irritably. Damn the Dresden Slate, and damn her parents for raising her right on top of it.

It wasn't that much of a surprise that some kind of powers would manifest. Her brother could disappear from sight. Mom could calm people down by making eye contact.

Kaida just wished that it had manifested in something less annoying. Something like blue hair, or breathing underwater. Or, if it had to be her eyes, why couldn't they just never be dry? Why did she have to have numbers swimming in front of the timeline scratched on the board.

How was she supposed to learn anything if she couldn't see what she was doing!?

Kusanagi, who was unfortunate enough to sit next to her, kept shooting the girl glances. It wasn't everyday that Kaida, who was normally very friendly, or at least collected, would glare daggers into the whiteboard.

By the time lunch rolled around Kaida was frustrated enough that she didn't think she would be back for the other half of the day. The girl slapped her book closed and left. She was out of the school in a matter of minutes, her shoes traded and her skirt swirling around her knees with her speed.

The numbers kept coming and going. The more people and things that passed in front of her eyes the more numbers she saw. For every bone, for every wall, for every traffic light more numbers popped up, crowding her vision.

It all tried to swallow her.

Kaida ducked off the street, into a little cafe. There was less there, and she could almost see the menu.

She mumbled an order for a tea and passed them her card. She couldn't pick out the features of the barista's face, but she could see the pressure needed to break their skull apart, and the points on their cheeks where she needed to smack to shatter their bones.

Kaida muttered her thanks and left, almost falling right over a chair before she stumbled into an empty table. An empty table that needed exactly 7,440 psi at a 73 degree angle fourteen inches from the edge, facing into the grain.

She took a drink and opened her kindle, setting it in front of her to give the illusion of reading. A headache was coming on, throbbing behind her eyes. Was she cursed to flash between regular sight and this crap for the rest of her life?

She rubbed her eyes, grimacing when they started watering.

"D'you need glasses or something?"

She startled, spinning around and lashing out at whoever had snuck up on her. A strong fist caught her, the warm hand dwarfing her own. She caught a flash of red hair before the numbers flashed across her eyes. His were so much higher than the barista's had been. And, she knew his voice.

"Suoh?" she relaxed a little, taking her hand out of his. He sat behind her in class. She would sit up straighter sometimes so Honomi wouldn't notice him sleeping in class again.

"You've been rubbing her eyes all day, and you left text book," Suoh took the chair next to hers. Someone else, she assumed Kusanagi, sat across from her. The wall was to her right, leaving no more space for anyone to join them. Not that Kaida expected anyone else to join them.

Of course, she hadn't expected these two to join her either.

The numbers faded in time for her to see Kusanagi produced her math book. Her brows furrowed.

"You brought me my book?" she was surprised. They weren't exactly friends.

"The assignment is due tomorrow," Kusanagi pointed out, flashing her a smile, "And we don't want any lovely ladies to get bad grades."

"Awe, I didn't know you care," she rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. It faded when she looked at the math book and more numbers than were on the cover popped up. Damn it.

The boys around her shifted a little and she glanced at them, confused.

"What?" she asked, trying see their expressions past the numbers.

"Your eyes," Suoh leaned just a little bit closer. "They're black."

"Well yeah, they always are," she frowned at him deeper. Kusanagi shook his head, changing the pattern she saw of breaking parts. She needed a better name for those. Maybe, Shatter Points? Yeah, that would do.

"No, your eyes. All of them. There's no white at all."

Kaida stared at him. "You're kidding." There was no way that her eyes were all black. No way.

"I'm serious," he countered, pushing his bangs aside to see her better. She blinked, the numbers vanished, and he frowned.

"They're normal now," Suoh reported.

Kaida shoved her things in her bag, her stomach turning. Damn it, she didn't want to start going to classes at the Center. Her brother taught them, which was all well and good, but he would never let her have her anonymity again. And, she already spent too much time in the 'family business'.

But if she couldn't get her eyes to work she couldn't go to regular school.

"I'll see you guys later," she muttered, fleeing as fast as she could. She slipped into the street, the world spinning with numbers and Shatter Points. The city buzzed with people, talking, walking, running. Cars zoomed across the street, trains past in the distance. She could see, she could hear too much. How the hell was she supposed to get back home like this?

She pulled out her phone to try calling her brother, but she couldn't see the screen.

 _Damn it! Damn it all!_

"Hey, Kaida," Kusanagi walked out next to her, Suoh at his side. "Do you need some help?"

"No," she said quickly, her pride already wounded. Suoh was known for starting fights and getting in trouble, she didn't see why he would go out of his way to help her. Returning a book was one thing.

Souh ran his fingers through his red hair, which bombarded her with a million '71 g's and just as many breaking points. Thousands. Her head throbbed harder.

"Maybe," she back tracked. "Maybe I do. I can't really… see, like this. Everything is unfocused and confusing."

"Yeah?" Suoh looked at her. Or so she assumed. She couldn't see. _Son of a bitch_.

She nodded, closing her eyes against onslaught. "Yeah. It's been like this all day, since yesterday too. I don't know how to turn it off. "

Suoh sighed. "Then I guess we'll have to walk you home, right?" he looked at Kusanagi, who opened his phone. If he didn't know where she lived, Kaida would be amazed. "Unless you want to get hit by a car?"

She shook her head, grimacing. "No, thanks. You know you don't have to."

"No shit? I don't have to do anything. I'm offering." Suoh turned and started walking down the street. Kusanagi fell into step with him. Kaida followed after, focusing on the part of his spine that needed 5987 newtons to break.

This was probably the most grim power she'd ever heard of.

* * *

"Hold your elbows in closer," Kari gripped Ace's arms and pushed them around before she spread his grip on the pipe. He was quick to learn, and improvise, but he had gotten into some bad habits over the years. No one had ever taught these boys the right way to use weapons, not even Dadan with her axe.

Kari figured they lucked out when they met her.

Or Ace did at least, Luffy was perfectly happy swinging his fists at whatever got in his way.

"Up, down, left, right," she watched Ace raise the pipe to block the imaginary attacks. It was awkward and uncoordinated, but she wasn't surprised. Ace had more experience than he had practice, and it made for a weird effect.

She picked up a stick, held it with both hands, and swiped at his side. She had never given up the kenjutsu practices that her Grandfather had taught her, even when he left his service's. She didn't find it peaceful or meditative the way he did. She found it a good way to stay strong, and to keep sharp.

Ace blocked. Kari moved to the left, then down, then up, going through each strike slowly so he could get a feel for it. She hadn't realized until she saw the boys laying at Bluejam's feet, surrounded by fire, just how vulnerable they were.

Kari kicked him in the shin suddenly. Ace yelped, stumbled, and swung at her head. Kari leaned back a few inches, letting it clear her face.

"What was that for!" he shouted.

Kari let a smile slither across her face.

"Expect the unexpected," she said simply, and lunged with her stick.

* * *

Kaida stretched her arms behind her head, letting a piece of paper slip into the collar of her shirt, against her neck. She slumped in her seat, watching the white board with clear eyes. There was a moment before the paper disappeared. She heard it being unfolded, then Suoh snorted.

Kaida hid a grin at the ceiling. She felt amazing that day. Lighter, the weight that always rolled in her stomach had changed. It wasn't gone, but it lessened and it lifted her spirits.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw it pass over to Kusanagi. He glanced at her, one brow arched.

"What are you, twelve?" he folded the paper and slipped it into his shoe.

"No," Kaida flashed her teeth at him, "I'm a super spy, and I have to keep practicing. Duh."

"Of course you are," he drawled, "How could you be anything else when you look like-"

"Izumo! Is there something you'd like the share with the rest of us?" Honami asked from the front of the room. For all her voice was sharp her smile was amused. She was a nice woman, who would let you do whatever you wanted as long as you didn't get caught.

"Just that we have the prettiest teacher in Shizume City," he said, smiling sweetly.

Honomi shook her head and turned back to the lecture.

"Flirt," Kaira accused, making a face at him. Kusanagi winked at her.

It wasn't long after that Honomi dismissed them and left the room. The teenagers milled around, some bolting straight for the door. Kaida sat on her desk, turning so her feet were on the chair and she was facing Suoh, who had fallen asleep at some point.

She fished out her lunch box, flipped it open and pulling out half of a sandwich. The rest of it, some baby carrots, cabbage, and a few strawberries, she set down next to the sleeping red head's hand.

"You're going to spoil him," Kusanagi warned.

"That's fine," Kaida replied, biting into her sandwich. Everyone else who had stayed in the room gave them a wide berth. Besides her and Kusanagi no one wanted to be near Suoh. He didn't give many visible signs of how he was feeling, but when his temper snapped there was more than a few broken bones to go around.

Kaida wasn't afraid of that. Her Grandfather was a King, she was a Clansmen, and now a Strain. What had she to fear from a normal human?

She looked away from Kusanagi and found Mikoto staring at her. At her arm, where the sleeve had fallen down to reveal angry purple bruises, starting to turn green.

"What happened?" he asked. Kaida made a face and pulled her sleeve down.

"Nothing," she replied, shoving the rest of the sandwich in her mouth. She tried to tuck her hands out of sight but Suoh grabbed it first. He wasn't rough, but his hold was too strong to be gentle.

Kaida sighed. "Seriously, Suoh, it's nothing," she insisted. He pushed back her arm. The skin was tender and the bruise, when not covered, reached all the way to her elbow. In all honesty the bones should have broken, but she had reinforced them with Gold at the last second.

"Mikoto," he corrected. Kaida startled, staring at his amber eyes. They burned into her and for a second she saw something else, something wild and fierce and immensely threatening. She was looking into the eyes of a tiger, not a man.

She smiled, just a little.

"Mikoto," she repeated, testing the name. "I really am okay. I got into a scuffle."

"Since when do you fight?" Kusanagi asked, leaning in to see her arm. Like this, he and Suo- _Mikoto_ , blocked off the rest of the classroom. They were a barrier between her and the others. Kaida's smile grew larger.

"I fight sometimes, when I have to," she shrugged. The smile didn't slip off of her face.

"You like to," Mikoto said. It was preposterous. Kaida's mouth opened to deny the allegations, but she found that she couldn't.

"Why would I?" she said instead. "It's messy, and sweaty, and bloody. And it only ends up in pain."

"You know," Kusanagi said, "Lying to yourself is bad practice. "

Kaida rolled her eyes.

"Shut up and eat your lunch."

* * *

"Why are you glaring so sullenly! Stop it," Garp frowned at her from where he'd taken a seat on the ground. Luffy and Ace had been pounded into unconsciousness. Kari cursed her small body and her unhoned senses, the things that gotten her tied to this godforsaken tree. If it wouldn't light up the whole forest she would have already burnt it to ash.

"I'm glaring because I hate you," she said blandly.

Garp made a face at her. "Just because I train the boy to be strong Marine's-"

"That's not why," she interrupted. She knew training children, had been trained the entirety of her last life. She didn't hate him for that.

For the first time since she had met him, Garp looked truly perplexed.

Kaida stared at her boys, laying on the ground with bumps towering over their heads.

"I hate you because they deserve better. Both of them deserve better than life you gave them. They deserve to be loved and adored and hugged until they get sick of it. Instead, because of you they know about hunger, they know about hatred, they know about paid," she bared her teeth at him, her beating heart now bleeding.

Garp looked down at Luffy, making a face.

"You'll never know what it's like until you have your own kids. They need to be tough, if they're going to be Marine's."

"Tough doesn't mean they need to be unloved!" she flung herself against the rope, snarling. "Do you have any idea how Ace feels about himself! He doesn't think he-"

"I know what Ace thinks!" Garp snapped, "He'll find his answer, if he keeps living, he'll understand."

"He's a fucking child. He shouldn't have this question in the first place."

"No," Garp said, for once looking solemn. "But the world will never forgive him for being born."

Kari grit her teeth together. If that was so, maybe she should just burn this world to the ground.


	5. What Was and What Is: 2

Kaida adjusted her grip on her back when the air around them changed. The fast paced anonymity of the city shifted away from them. They had the attention of everyone surrounding them.

A knife clicked to her right before the blade pressed against her throat. Kaida stood very still, surprised by this change of pace.

Mikoto and Kusanagi, who now insisted she call him Izumo, had taken to walking her home, or to the Nanakamado Research Center and Hospital, where she had an 'after school job'. It was fun, walking between the two of them down the city streets. Mikoto was as chill as anyone she had ever met, and Izumo had no problem keeping up conversations or flirting with her.

Some days they even had a tail, a little middle schooler who thought Mikoto was the cat's pajamas.

This was the first time they had ever had any trouble.

Kaida frowned, letting her bag drop from her shoulder to the ground below. Her favorite charm bounced on the ground, a little tiger clawing off the zipper on her side pocket. If the assailants said anything she didn't hear it.

In one smooth move she grabbed the hand holding the knife and pushed it away from her, turning herself and the arm until she was in a position to break it. As the knife holder screamed numbers flashed before her eyes, unwanted, and hid it when someone else came barrelling out to punch her in the face.

"Motherfucker!" she stumbled back, gripping her nose. She screwed her eyes shut to shut out the distractions. The air shifted and she grabbed the person that was trying to hit her. She rolled with the weight, taking them to the ground.

It wasn't the way she normally fought. It was graceful, it wasn't fast strikes and agility, dancing away before she could be hurt. It wasn't smacking people with a stick from too far to be hurt, and it certainly wasn't slicing through the air with a sword.

It was messy, her leg tore where the skirt moved up and her socks didn't reach and an elbow dug into her side. She couldn't see even if she opened her eyes.

Kaida punched him, something broke under her fist. The girl twisted, kicking hard something soft. A high pitched whine exited him. She scrambled up, the throbbing behind her eyes finally fading. She looked at a man that lunged at her and met him halfway, punching with everything she had. There was no gold, no grace. Just blood where his face caved under her fists and sweat that ran across her skin.

The man under her stopped moving eventually and Kaida stood up, blood on her hands. She glanced around and found herself the last one fighting. Everyone who had surrounded them before was either on the ground or running off.

Mikoto and Izumo were standing there, staring at her.

Heat lifted her face and she scrambled to smooth her skirt.

"Um," she said. The pavement certainly was interesting, wasn't it?

"So much for not liking fighting," Mikoto said. Kaida looked up, startled, in time to see a smile grace his face. Her face got hotter at the sight.

Mikoto rested a warm hand on top of her head, messing up her short hair.

"C'mon. Let's get you home."

Kaida turned and trailed after him, trying to hide a smile as he lead the way to her house. No one else was home, so she let them come in after her. It was plain, pristine and clean. It looked more like a stage than a home. No one was ever around _to_ live in it.

Kaida disappeared long enough to switch out of her school uniform and wash off her knee before she appeared to sit on the couch with her friends. She crossed her legs and leaned back on the couch, a smile still fixed on her face.

"You know, for someone who 'doesn't like fighting' you've had a skip in your step since you did fight," Izumo observed.

Kaida shrugged, looking away.

"It's… complicated," she said at last. Mikoto stretched himself across the couch, making himself at home. Kaida flushed when his head slipped back to cradle in the dip between her hip and her leg. Mikoto was shameless!

His amber eyes stared up at her, burning. She swallowed thickly, finding she couldn't look away.

"I- I always feel like, like there's something inside of me. Something hot and tight and it never goes away unless I'm fighting, or unless I've just fought. It makes me sick, but sometimes it gets worse. It gets bigger and hotter and I feel like if I don't do anything it'll swallow me whole."

"You should fight more then," Mikoto advised.

"I can't just go around starting fights," she objected. She was a Rabbit, the elite, and she had a responsibility to her family name.

"Why not?" Mikoto closed his eyes, utterly relaxed against her. "If you don't let some of that feeling out, it will consume you. " He held up a fist and Kaida obediently tapped the back of her hand against his.

Kaida had no idea at the time, but Mikoto knew all about being consumed by emotions.

* * *

Kari pet Luffy's hair, slowly winding her fingers through the soft locks. He was clutching his hat to his chest, breathing deeply. He was getting tall now, entering the beginning stages of puberty. Growth spurts were only a couple years away.

She was already in the middle of it, now towering over Ace by a full head. Much to his chagrin, she could rest her elbow comfortably on his shoulder and just lean on him.

Ace pouted across the campfire. Not that he would ever admit to pouting. He was way too manly for that.

Kari finally offered him a smile and patted the ground next to her.

"Come here, you weirdo," she instructed. Ace finally caved and crawled around to her, letting Kari pull him into her side. Luffy was already taking up most of her lap, but there was still enough room for her to pull Ace in where his head rested on her hip.

"Man, what am I going to do when Sabo comes back? I don't have enough space for all of you boys!"

Ace grumbled and wrapped his arms around her middle, pushing his face insto her stomach.

"Just pick me and be done with it. I'm gonna be Pirate King, after all. "

Kari rolled her eyes and used her other hand to pet Ace. He was cute.

"Why are you so determined to be the king anyways?" she asked, "If you hate your dad so much, I can't understand why you want to take over his legacy."

Ace stiffened at the mention of Gol D. Roger.

"I- I have to prove that I'm not him. That I'm better than him. And, besides, I want to be free. There's no one more free-"

"Than the king of the sea," she finished for him. "Okay. I won't fight you on it. But you know, that's not the kind of king I was talking about."

"I know," Ace agreed.

"Hey, maybe you'll be the Gold King," she teased, poking the top of his head. Ace made a face and hid in her stomach again.

"I hope not. I don't think I can take anymore connection to _him_."

Kari's eyes softened with her fondness.

"We'll see. Gold will be the next one to manifest, since we already have Silver out there somewhere."

"How are you going to find them?" Ace asked her.

Kari sighed, closing her eyes. Ace brought up something that had been eating her for thirteen years.

"I have no idea. But, I have to. I have to find them."

The scar on her throat throbbed.

* * *

Kaida's blood ran cold into her veins. She stared, eyes wide and mouth open, as the fire raged across the street. Street lights melted and car engines heated to the point of explosion. The sidewalk cracked and shattered beneath the feet of the King.

High above their heads energy crawled across a sword that hung in the sky, suspended in the clouds. Red swirled around the hilt, where a ruby gleamed. The tip curved strangely, pointing down at Mikoto.

Mikoto, her best friend, who was the King of the Red Clan. Mikoto, whose face had gone ashen. Mikoto, whose once amber eyes now glowed red when they met her.

He reached out, towards Kaida, and the fire did too.

She flinched back, stumbling away from it. From him.

Pain twisted his face and in that instant Kaida wished he _had_ burned her. Wished that she had taken a blow to the stomach that would justify the sudden twist in her guts. Wished that she could take back her cowardice and walk into the fire, towards her friend.

The street cleared of the last civilians, who had run screaming. At her feet a corpse smoldered, the gun in its hand melting into a mockery of a glove. A gun that been pointed at her only a second ago.

Kaida swallowed thickly.

"Mikoto," she begged, but she couldn't get anything else out. She couldn't explain her regret, she couldn't take away her actions.

Mikoto just looked at her and turned away, the red fire retreating under his skin. He walked off, hands shoved in his pockets to hide their shaking.

Kaida sunk to the ground and wept over the burned body.

* * *

Kari had honestly forgotten how much she hated boobs. She had gone without them for fifteen years, but now they were back with a vengeance. They hurt, they were always in the way, and no matter what she wore it looked obscene.

For some reason, no one in this godforsaken world had invented sports bras, so she couldn't even squish them against her chest and keep them in place.

Who the fuck were the people in charge of clothes and how did she hunt them down and skin them living?

Kari turned down the street, aiming for the forest. At least Luffy and Ace didn't stare at her like she was a piece of meat. She sidestepped a lady with a baby carriage and kicked a leering man right between the legs, sending him crumbling to the ground with a high pitched shriek.

With a storm in her eyes Kari stomped into the forest, intent on working her temper out on whatever poor, unsuspecting animal happened to cross her path first and giving the leftovers to Luffy and Ace for lunch.

What happened instead was Ace came jumping out from behind a tree only a half a mile into the woods and crashed right into her for a hug.

Kari caught him effortlessly, still much taller than either of her boys, and spun with the impact, lifting him right off his feet. Luffy emerged a few second later, hunting knife in one hand. Kari tilted her head.

"Have you had lunch yet?" she asked, her fury fading as soon as Ace wrapped his arms around her.

Luffy shook his head, coming close enough to kiss her cheek.

"Ace said we should wait for you 'cause it's nice, but i'm _so_ hungry no! Wanna help?" he asked. Idly, Kari pushed Luffy's hat back around his neck so she could pet his head. He wouldn't let anyone take his hat, but if Kari moved it a little that was okay.

Kari opened her mouth to agree before she paused. Her anger had evaporated. The tight swell of fury in her stomach slipped away, a knot that was undone by her boys. She smiled, draping one arm around Ace and offering her hand to Luffy, who took it and swung it between them with a brilliant smile.

"Actually, I think I'm good," she admitted. Ace hugged her tighter and Kari looked down before she started laughing. Soft snores echoed from the boy in her arms.

At least someone got some use out of her boobs. Ace had a good pillow for his narcoleptic attacks now.


	6. What Was and What Is: 3

**Daisy Field: You can at least put that pain off for a few more chapter! Thank you so much, I'll try to come up with a list and stick in the notes some time.**

 **alexc123: tHanks!**

 **sarge1130: who's to say! Not like I know who every King is or anything... and, you actually guess three of them right. Nice! You should totally check out K if you haven't already, it's so good. The characters, the animation, the story line the twists! It's just beautiful, it's so good, I love it so much.**

 **Yuki Suou: I love One Piece but it's so so loooooong, K is good for quick, painfilled watching.**

 **iwaisoomi: Thank you so much!**

* * *

Kaida strode through the halls of the Center, her golden masked fixed firmly on her face. Mizuchi walked at her side, along with one of the Blue Clansmen. Dog, Mikoto had called them, before Kaida had hurt him. He hadn't gone back to school after that. She hadn't seen him in years.

The sounds of shouting came from around the corner ahead of them. Inside her mask Kaida sighed, silently. Rabbits didn't make noises, unless they were talking to each other or their King.

She wasn't here for trouble. She hadn't been in a real fight since the one that almost got her killed and cost her her best friend. Just the carefully coordinated ones that only left her with a tighter knot in her chest. .

She hadn't been here for trouble, honest. She was just checking in on the Center for her Grandfather, no one thought there would be something to do, let alone that a familiar boy who was no longer in middle school would come crashing around the corner.

Gen, the Blue Clansmen, caught the familiar face and twisted his arm behind his back, pinning him firmly.

"Totsuka!" Kamamoto yelled. Kaida was glad for her mask, it made it easier to hide her surprise, and it kept Tatara from recognizing her. Tatara had tailed Mikoto for almost a full year, getting into just as much trouble at the rest of them, only he never had the backup from Mikoto or Izumo or Kaida. He took the punches and came back the next day. He was a stubborn boy.

Kamamoto she only knew by his file. He was strong, and had no problems with violence. Usually seen with Misaki Yata and, by extension, Saruhiko Fushimi. Neither of which were obviously present, but she could hear a scuffle down the hallway.

"I was informed that there were intruders." Mizuchi spoke with a smile. His speech was calm, but underneath that could be felt a freezing cold temperature. He was always like that, chilly and distant for all he was usually smiling. "Who is in charge?"

Tatara made a face, looking between the two Gold Clansmen and Kamamoto. "Technically me, I guess?"

"Name yourself." While his expression was still soft Mizuchi was, as always, haughty. Kaida didn't care for him, he gave her the creepys.

"Clansman of Mikoto Suoh, the third king, Totsuka Tatara," he smiled politely.

Some slight scorn crossed out Mizuchi's softness. A mask as effective as the gold Kaida wore.

"…aah, I know your name. I believe, even though you're one of the first clansmen, you have unsuitably low abilities…"

"Haha, that's not a very nice way of remembering me." After smiling wryly, Totsuka abruptly changed his expression. From his usual smile, to a blank face. Kaida stiffened at the sight. "Are you Mizuchi?"

The man narrowed his eyes. Because of his deeply chiseled features, a dark shadow fell on his eyes, vanishing them.

"Correct. I am this Center's head, and the second King, Daikaku Kokujoji's clansman, Koushi Mizuchi."

After naming himself, Mizuchi glanced at the boy that had come up behind Tatara. He was one of the Strains in the class her brother taught, Hoshi, she thought his name was.

Tatara followed his gaze and said, helpfully, "We threatened that Strain over there into bringing us here."

Mizuchi gestured with his chin.

"Go."

After a short, hesitating pause the boy ran away, back down the corridor.

"So? If you have some sort of excuse, I'll listen," Mizuchi offered. Kaida turned her head towards him. That was not something he was supposed to offer. They were trespassing on another Clans territory, that wasn't something anyone but a King was supposed to be able to dismiss.

"You know a kid named Anna Kusina, right?"

Kaida's shoulders drew together. Honami's niece. Kaida had seen her file, she was a powerful Strain already, even when she was so young. What was going on here?

"…what about her?"

"That kid, she can't be called unrelated to us… last night, our members had a fight with some Blue Clansmen who seemed to be keeping watch on her."

Kaida tilted her head. That wasn't very unusual, Blue Clansmen often watched young, potentially dangerous Strains, as Mizuchi explained to Tatara. Still, they weren't supposed to engage rival Clansmen. What the hell was going on here?

There was a momentary silence.

"…the ones in charge of watching Kushina-kun yesterday were the Minato brothers, correct?" Mizuchi addressed the question to Gen, who was in charge of the Blue Clan until a new King was selected.

"Yes," he confirmed. Kaida shifted when she saw Kamamoto eyeing the back of Gen's neck. Her hand dropped to the hilt of the sword at her side, which was a faster draw than the staff over her shoulders. Surely he wouldn't attack when they were outnumbered.

"Yesterday, the ones who came in contact with your clansmen were, shall we say, ones who have some slight faults in their personality. Surely what made you suspicious was that… however, it's extremely misguided to suspect the Center because of that. Just because the guards used were bad, it doesn't make sense to suspect the work of the one hiring them, does it?"

Except, it did. Her grandfather was meticulous in the recruitment of his subordinates, their loyalty was to him, or to the future of the country. And, when assigning people to observe Stains, especially young ones, they didn't send impulsive people or those that would kick up a fuss. What was Mizuchi thinking?

Gen's expression changed into an unpleasant one. Kaida could imagine how happy he was being treated like a glorified body guard to another Clan.

"…The red clan wishes to take that child."

In response to what Totsuka said, Mizuchi froze. "…what?"

"If I said that, what would you do?" Tatara looked at him, the challenge clear. Kaida bit her tongue to keep from laughing.

Mizuchi spat out a laugh.

"Ridiculous. She's a difficult Strain. There is no way the red clan which has violence as its creed could protect her. I am the one who will protect her future."

Something in the way he said that set Kaida's skin wrong. There was something happening here that she didn't like one bit.

"But, if that child were to choose us, you wouldn't have the right to stop it, would you?" Tatara pressed.

"She will not choose someone like you people."

Totsuka closed his mouth momentarily at Mizuchi's completely confident words.

"In any case, you people are criminals who invaded another king's territory. Rather than that nonsense, shouldn't you be trying to do something about yourselves?"

"Are you going to punish us?"

Mizuchi seemed to be lost for words for a moment at Totsuka's soft question. Kaida's stomach twisted. She tried to work her jaw loose enough to object.

"…I probably should."

Totsuka nodded slowly to that response.

"That's fine." He turned to Mizuchi and smiled his usual smile, one Kaida knew well. "In order to punish another king's clansman, proper formalities need to be observed… what I want to know is if you can do something like that openly without anything to hide."

Mizuchi's temple wrinkled a bit. Kaida could hear Kamamoto rebukingly say "Totsuka-san" in a muffled voice, but she wasn't paying attention to him. She only has eyes for Tatara. A short silence fell. After sighing slightly, Mizuchi looked at the man in blue who was holding Totsuka.

Gen twisted Tatara's arm suddenly up, forcing it at a bad angel. Kaida blinked and winced at the numbers that appeared. That was bad.

"Totsuka!"

Tatara lifted a hand to stop his friend from lunging for him. Kaida could hear his muscles creaking. She shifted, gripping her sword tighter so she could slice Gen's arm off. Then, Tatara's eyes met hers through the holes in her mask and she froze. Tatara's eyes bored into hers, freezing her in place. It was like he could read her soul. Like he knew exactly who was under the mask.

"…I am the greatest and most powerful golden king's clansman. Of course I have nothing to hide. This center is also being properly managed under the observation of the 'Rabbits'." Mizuchi lightly waved one hand Kaida, including her in his arrogance.

Tatara grabbed his shoulder, grimacing.

.

"I don't know why you lot are feeling such suspicions for us, but we've done nothing to deserve it… however, dealing with a Red Clansman would cause some trouble for our King. I would not wish that for such a small incident as this." Mizuchi looked down at Tatara. "Begone."

After watching Mizuchi leave, Tatara sighed. Kamamoto came running and kneeled down next to him, heedless of the Golden Girl that stood over them. He only reacted when she took a step towards them, swinging a red fist towards her threateningly.

Tatara touched his shoulder. "It's okay, Kamamoto. She's a friend."

"What?" the teenager looked at him like he was crazy.

Kaida snorted inside of her mask, the sound muffled beyond recognition.

"How do you know that?" she asked, lowering herself to the ground in front of the younger man.

"I couldn't forget you. Neither did the others," he smiled at her like he knew she flinched under the gold. "What are you doing here?"

"My job. Let's see your shoulder," she moved in and Tatara turned to let her inspect it. The numbers flashed up with her will. She hissed in sympathy.

"I think your pain tolerance is higher than mine," she mumbled, laying her hand over. She placed her fingers just so and pushed. The nerves relaxed under the pressure and Tatara sighed in relief.

"You're the best," Tatara smiled at her. Kaida shook her head. If she was the best she would have put a stop to all of this.

"You boys should go, before you cause more trouble," she advised. Tatara tilted his head, looking up at her. He was still smiling. He was always smiling. Kaida didn't understand.

"You should come by the bar. Mikoto misses you."

Kaida bowed her head. She didn't think she could do that. She didn't think she belonged.

* * *

"I packed you a lunch!" Ace announced, shoving a box into her chest. Kari stumbled a little from the force, looking down. It was a plain box, weighed down with whatever was inside. Kari was surprised.

"You did?" She asked, reaching to open it. Her fingers were promptly squished by another box.

"I made you better lunch!" Luffy shouted, appearing from… somewhere.

"Seriously? What's up with you two?" she asked, fixing her hold on the boxes. Luffy's didn't feel very heavy…

Ace looked somewhere else, but Luffy was shameless. He beamed at her.

"Makino said that when girls like someone they make them a lunch! So we did that!"

Kari's mouth twitched into a wide smile. Then, she started laughing. Ace flushed darkly and Luffy, looking curious, snickered with her.

"Y-you guys. It's the girl that makes the boy the lunch!"

Ace started drawing back, turning redder, but Kari grabbed his hand and pulled him in closer. She couldn't really hug him, so she pressed her forehead against his instead.

"You boys are super cute, and I love you."

Luffy grabbed her other hand, almost sending the lunch boxes tumbling to the ground.

"You love me too, right?" he gave her the puppy eyes. Kari smile and nodded.

"Yeah. I do," she agreed. "Now get off, I'm hungry!"

Luffy whined but let go, and Ace moved back far enough that she could open to the boxes. Ace's was messily packed, rice with meat cut into a blob she was pretty sure was meant to be a heart. There was also a pile of chopped up vegetables, much smaller than the mound of flesh.

"Ace, it's so cute," she praised, smiling at him. He flushed and kicked at the ground.

When she opened Luffy's, she found only one cookie. Her brow arched.

"I was hungry on the walk over," Luffy explained. Kari was honestly surprised he had left her the cookie. She smiled at him.

"Thank you. You're both sweet."

And so was the cookie.

* * *

"Mizuchi, what the hell are you doing?" her voice was low, sharp. Dangerous. Gold glinted in her eyes behind the rabbit shaped face plate. Mizuchi hadn't gained any combat abilities. Only one in a few hundred did, to be fair, and those that were gifted with such power were welcomed into the Rabbits. They were the Gold Clans elite, the strongest, more than a challenge for the best of the rest of the Clans.

Mizuchi looked over at her, his smile never leaving. She found that she hated him. Underneath him was a little girl, totally unconscious, dripping with water. Not just any girl, it was Honami's niece. Anna. That girl the Reds had come asking after.

It wasn't uncommon to find children here. Her own brother had developed his powers as a Strain he was a mere nine, and Zuri, a young telepath that now oversaw construction, had begun exhibiting her abilities when she was a toddler. There were plenty of children who exhibited superhuman abilities.

The uncommon, the _disgusting_ part of the scene, was the burn marks on her arms. The water dripping out of her mouth. Kaida's fist clenched at her side, the other hand moving to pull the sword out of her hip. She pointed the gleaming tip at Mizuchi's throat.

The lab around them was perfectly white, except for the blue water in the tank Anna floated in. Mizuchi stood out of his spinning chair, narrowed his eyes at her but didn't lose his smile.

"I'm taking Anna now," Kaida's voice shook with her fury, "And your head."

"You couldn't even if you tried," his smile turned nasty. "I'm the strongest of the Gold Clan, you won't beat-"

She cut him cleanly, from hip to shoulder. Blood sprayed out over her hands, soaking her long black robes and the perfect white floor. Mizuchi stumbled back. Kaida went to scoop up Anna, but pain shot through her arm.

She hissed, drawing back to find a dart embedded in her arm. She ripped it out and looked over at Mizuchi. Gold had encased his body and before her very eyes the horrible wound she had inflicted repaired itself. Mizuchi stood straight, not even a scar to show for her troubles. In his hand was a tranquilizer gun, one of the handheld ones they used for dangerous Strains.

Kaida pressed the sharp blade of her katana against her arm, above the impact of the dart. Maybe she could drain out the poison before it got to the rest of her system.

Mizuchi lifted the gun again and she sidestepped the next dart, lunging to drive her sword into his guts before she cracked him across the face with her elbow. With her other hand she pointed, gathering a golden light to the tip of her finger. It shot off like a bullet, through his lungs, threw times. Blood poured around their feet. Mizuchi cracked her across the head with the gun and she stumbled, the world swimming.

She straightened up in time to knock another dart away with the blade of her sword.

Mizuchi stood between her and the girl, totally unharmed. The only remains of her attack were the tears in his clothes. Worse, she was starting to get dizzy, blood flowing freely from her self inflicted wound. This was bad. This was so bad.

Mizuchi brought his wrist up and spoke into the radio embedded into the watch.

"Attention all Blue and Gold Clansmen! There is a rogue Rabbit in the facility. I Repeat, and rogue Rabbit had infiltrated the center."

He turned a smug smile on Kaida. The knowledge of what she had to do made her sick to her stomach.

She turned her back on the little girl, and ran.


	7. What Was and What Is: 4 (Last one)

**alexc123: I know I love them!**

 **sarge1130: That's a pretty accurate theory!**

 **Yuki Suoh : Suoh! Thank you!**

 **Aliathe: Yeah, I don't like sticking OC stuff, especially things like this, into actual cross over categories ^^' plus, I'll be explaining everything at some point so it's not really... necessary? It just makes more sense right off the bat if you know K.**

* * *

"Are you sure you won't put it off for a few more years?" Ace asked Kari for a the hundredth time.

She had her arms crossed over her chest, her legs crossed under her and a frown firmly in place. Luffy was sniffling next to her, tears in his eyes. The girl softened and opened her arms to him. He launched himself into her arms, hugging her tight. She held one arm open to Ace, who frowned but crawled into her embrace.

"I'm sorry. I want to, but I've put it off too long. I'm supposed to find the Kings. I have to protect them."

"You don't even know where they are," Ace objected, frowning at her.

"Yeah," Luffy agreed. "Stay here! Stay and leave with me when I go become a pirate. You can find them then!"

"Didn't you say the Silver King is immortal?" Ace added. "So what could possibly happen to him?"

Kari frowned, looking at her wrist. The Silver King had manifested years ago, and so far none others had shown up. They were making good points…

"Please? We don't want you to leave!"

She made the mistake of looking down and meeting Luffy's eyes. Shit. Wide, doe-eyed innocent, begging for nothing more than her own companionship.

The words of her grandfather echoed in her head, warring with the words of her boys.

At last, she sighed.

"Fine. I'll wait. Four more years, Luffy, and not a day soon."

* * *

It was dark when she woke up. There was only minimal light filtering in through the curtains, spilling across hardwood floor. The flash of city lights, only just dimmer than the sun, illuminated discarded clothes on the floor. The room had little more than the bed, just a chest of drawers and a stool in one corner where a laptop sat. A phone charger hung out of the wall.

Kaida breathed in the familiar scent of smoke, cardamon and cedar.

"Mikoto."

She sat up slowly. The distinct feeling of wanting to throw up but not having anything in her stomach came with a wave of vertigo.

Right, she'd been drugged. By Mizuchi. The last thing she remembered was stumbling into an ally while her former subordinates hunted her down at the word of a madman. She had fallen, onto the ground and into darkness.

Anger flared red hot inside her until she could hardly breath. How dare he? What kind of sick son of a bitch would torture a child for their powers? How much pain had Anna already endured at his hands? She had seen burns, bruises, she had walked in on her being nearly drowned. What else had he done to her? So many questions. Such unpleasant answers.

Kaida grimaced. She at least knew why the Reds were interested in the girl. Honami, her aunt, her been a teacher at their school. She, Mikoto and Izumo had been close to her for years. After her… falling out, with the boy she hadn't seen much of any of them. Intentionally. He didn't think she could face Mikoto after she'd hurt him so much.

Now, she didn't seem to have a choice.

Kaida sighed heavily and pushed the blankets off of her. At some point someone had taken her out of the black robes, the uniform for Rabbits. She was left in just her underwear, and the bandages on her shoulder.

Someone had folded her pants and a shirt and laid them on the nightstand next to her, the gold mask gleaming on top. Just the sight of it made her sick. Her whole family was a part of the Gold Clan, her brother worked with Mizuchi. The idea that they had let someone like him have that power was disgusting. Even worse was the knowledge that her grandfather had to know about it. Her knew all that happened in his clan. Something like this wouldn't slip by him.

Kaida took her pants out of the pile, trying not to think about who had been the one to undress her in the first place. The shirt wasn't hers, it wasn't her size and she had never owned anything in this shade of vague purple.

It would do.

Kaida picked up the mask, holding in shaking fingers as she looked over the red blaze that swept between the eyes and the black markings that phrased the eyes. It was more familiar than her own face nowadays.

She grimaced and roughed a hand through her hair, spiking it even further than it had been. When she had left school she had shaved it all off, and even two years later it wasn't much longer. A couple of inches, at most.

With nothing else to do she made for the door, mask swinging from her fingertips. The hallway outside lead her down the stairs. The living room was deserted but she could hear people talking on the other side of a door.

Silent as the grave Kaida pushed the door open and stepped into a bar. It was spotless, every surface gleaming softly in the low light. The peaceful ambiance clashed horribly with her choking feelings. Guilt, regret, fear. She hadn't been able to beat Mizuchi. She was supposed to be the strongest of the Rabbits, the best of the best. Yet, she had lost. When it mattered most, when a child was on the line, she hadn't been able to save them. Was good was all of her power if she couldn't used it-

Mikoto sat at the bar, where Izumo was polishing fine wine glasses. More faced scattered around the room, boys of Homra talking, bickering, eating. She catalogued their faces mechanically. Misaki Yata, Rikio Kamamoto, Saruhiko Fushimi and more.

Kaida's heart squeezed tight in her chest. She shoved the mask onto her face, hiding her wet eyes behind it.

"You're awake," Izumo said. The activity in the bar stopped and all eyes turned to her. Tatara was watching her, a placid smile in place. A video camera was aimed towards her.

Kaida nodded stiffly.

"That gash on your arm was pretty bad. You scared Yata, when you wouldn't wake up he brought you here." It was nice to at least know how she had arrived. She swallowed thickly. Her mouth tasted like chalk all of a sudden.

She crossed with the room with mechanical grace. Mikoto turned to look at her. She was devastated to find that now she, to, couldn't read his face.

They stood there like that for an eternity crammed into a few seconds, Mikoto staring straight into the blackness of her eye holes.

"Please," his face blurred before her eyes, "Please, Mikoto. You have to help her."

Izumo put down the glass. Mikoto's brows drew together.

"Who-"

"Anna!" she choked. "He's hurting her. I don't understand why. I-I couldn't save her. I didn't have the power. Please!" She dropped her head, squeezing her eyes shut as the tears over flowed and raced down her cheeks. "Please help her."

Mikoto's boot clacked on the floor when he stepped down from the barstool. He stopped just in front of her.

"Sure. We'll get Anna. But you have to do something too."

Kaida's head snapped up. She stared, wide eyed, at the man that stood before her.

Mikoto had grown. He stood a full head higher than she was, maybe more. His hair spiked up around his head, besides a couple of bangs that fell in his face. His eyes caught her. Tiger's eyes that glowed red instead of shining amber.

His fist was offered to her, fire wrapped around it. It flickered in front of her face.

"Never be afraid."

Kaida's heart throbbed. She tapped the back of her hand against his. Even if it burned her, that was fine. If she could make it up to Anna, for failing her… If she could make it up to Mikoto, for betraying his trust… She would let her skin smolder right off.

It wasn't as hot as she thought it would be. It didn't burn. Red stretched across her arm, wrapped around her whole body in a warm embrace that lifted her spirits and soothed her heart. The heat pulsed around her in a heartbeat. The gold mask on her face splintered and turned to ash, falling off around her shoulders.

Fire washed across her, freeing her from her golden prison.

* * *

Kari stared down at the grave dispassionately. She scattered seeds of queen anne's lace on the overturned earth, so perhaps some good could come from all this. She had no place in her heart for Chevy, and truthfully she hadn't so much as seen him since she practically moved in with Ace and Luffy after Sabo's 'death'.

Chevy was her uncle, yes, but she had no attachment to him. She was grateful that he had kept her fed and clothed for a few years, but that was it.

Did that make her a callous bitch?

Kari brushed her pants free of grass. A few strands of a long hair fell in front of her eyes, both black. She shook her head, sending it flying around her shoulders. It was too long now. It was getting unmanageable.

"You okay?" Ace asked. He and Luffy had been standing behind her while she offered a few respects to Chevy.

"Yeah," she smiled at them and held out her hands, one to each boy. Ace kissed her right cheek, and Luffy her nose. Her left cheek was for Sabo.

With one boy holding each hands she started walking back to the forest, where they belonged. Just the three of them, until Sabo was back in their fold. Sunlight dappled the forest floor, shimmering across tall grass and bushes. For once it was quiet in the woods, a few birds sang overhead but the massive beasts that usually plagued their travels stayed away. It was a nice day. A good day.

The three of them walked out of the forest, to where a cliff overlooked the sea. It was the same place that Ace had brought her to tell her about his lineage, all those years ago. Time had a funny way of passing.

Kari sat on the ground, dragging her boys with her. Luffy was just as big as she was these days, and Ace was taller by almost a full head. She would be tiny here as well.

Here, she would be no rabbit. Here, she was something else. Something more.

She was not the Red Queen of Homra, she was not Mikoto's bride or Anna's mother. She was not the granddaughter of the King of Timeless Palace.

She didn't know what she was. Not yet. She was Kari, she was Luffy and Ace and Sabo's girl.

That was enough.

"You guys… you know that you're my best friends rights?" she swallowed past words they deserved to hear. Why was it so hard to say it now? She had been able to do it before…

Luffy laughed and threw his stretchy arms around her and Ace, dragging them into a tumbling pile of awkwards limbs and indignation.

"Of course we know, Kari! You have to be friends with your future wife!"

"I never said yes! "


	8. First Steps

**Snickering Fox: Thank you!**

 **quietest: Thank you! She's one of my favorites! I actually have like, three other stories for her in my head? I'll probably never do anything with them.**

 **sarge1130: Luffy's selfishness is like, a driving force for the whole series, this child! and thank you!**

* * *

The ocean breeze pulled away the strands of her hair, carrying off long pieces of black far off into the forests. The sound of scissors snipping covered up the chirping of birds and the far off hustle and bustle of the city. She remained relaxed, her shoulders loose and her dark eyes closed. Luffy was sitting in front of her, chattering like a monkey.

It was Ace that was behind her, his own hair bouncing from a fresh trim. He sheared off lock after lock. Pieces of hair that had once gone all the way to her hips floated off in the wind, leaving her hair just a couple of inches long.

He moved on to her front, running his fingers down her cheek when he gathered the thick hair left in front of her face.

He paused at her face.

Kari opened her eyes to look at him, finding the boy staring at the hair in his hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked, cocking a brow. She would have tilted her head, but he still had the scissors pretty close. Ace didn't reply. He snipped one long strand diagonally before he moved to the other, did the same, and cut her bangs down to just past her eyes brows.

"Seriously, Ace, what are you doing?" she couldn't help the smile that started to form.

"Hold on," he ordered, "Lu, gimme that thing would'ja?"

Kari had no clue what he was referring to. Still, she would humor them. She didn't care enough about what she looked like to mind Ace playing around with her hair. He could have shaved it all off and she would have only been a little annoyed, because she was pretty sure her head shape was wrong for that.

Luffy passed Ace a half finished flower crown made out of some orange flowers on a vine. She had no idea what they were called. She hoped they weren't poisonous.

Kari sat very still as Ace brushed her new bangs back and laid the crown over her head, pinning the hair in place. He tied the thin vines at the base of her skull with dexterity that she was always surprised such a blunt person possessed.

Lately, he and Luffy had gotten into the weirdest phase of weaving flower crowns for her and, on occasion, Dadan. Kari was pretty sure they were just doing it so they could perfect them and give one to Makino for food. Finally, Ace pulled back. He tugged on each of the pieces of hair now framing her face and smiled to himself. Without the weight of extra foot of hair they bounced into a sort of wave.

"Finished?" she asked, trying to hide how amused she was. Ace pulled away from her and nodded to himself. He was staring at her face, and her hair. Before her eyes he started to tint into a darker sort of pink that dusted across his freckles.

"You look- fuck!" he announced. He turned his back on her, crossing his arms and stared out at the sea.

"Hey, hey. Ace! Why's your face so red?" Luffy bounced over to to shove his finger into his brothers cheek. Ace promptly punched him in the face and stormed into the woods, yelling something about needing to find dinner.

Kari was left staring after him with Luffy, who was more confused than anything else. Kari wrapped an arm around the littlest brother and pulled him into a hug that squished his face into her chest. Luffy, who was a cuddle bug and probably ace or gay by the fact that he wasn't really affected by girls even as a teenager, leaned into her embrace with a happy hum. She wasn't sure why he had been so touch starved when she had first walked into their lives, but if she ever found the reason behind it, she would commit murder.

"Your brother is weird," Kari told him blandly.

Luffy snickered and wrapped his rubbery arms around her middle. "Yeah! He was really, _really_ red."

"What a dork," Kari smiled fondly and knocked Luffy's hat back so she could pet his soft black hair. Overhead a bird called cheerfully into the rising sun.

She kissed the top of Luffy's head and looked out into the sea. The silver heart on her wrist pulsed softly. The first King had activated his sanctum…

"Did I ever tell you about what the Gold King does?" she asked abruptly.

"Nope," Luffy didn't pull back or let go when she backed up. She kept going, dragging the boy with her until they were in the sand and sunk down into it. Far enough the water wouldn't touch the rubber boy and hurt him.

"The Gold King, well, he actually used to be my grandfather. He died," she added. The scar on her throat pulsed.

"You've got Gramps now," Luffy told her. Kari sighed. She may have hated Garp, but he had taken her and Sabo as his grandkids without batting an eye. In fact he had been chasing them for a good half hour before he finally cornered them, looking at quartet and wondered when he'd gotten a granddaughter.

"Mmmm, he left this mark on my shoulder," she told him, pulling her arm away to show him the intricate lacing of geometric gold that surrounded a small flower. It shone with an etherial light at all time, glowing when she activated her powers. "That mark connects me to the Gold Kings powers, even after he's dead. It ties directly to the Dresden Slate, er, the mystery rock," she added for Luffy's benefit. "And the source of his power. The Gold Sanctum, is what its called. The first few clansmen usually get the most power from their kinds, unless they're tied to the Gold King. See, he draws out their natural talents, even mediocre ones, and maxes them out to their full potential."

"Sounds lame," Luffy said, shoving his finger up his nose. Kari promptly shoved him away and reached for the sanitizer in her pocket.

"Sometimes it is. Like, someone will be good at building clocks and once they get Gold they can make giant ones. But, every one in a million people get fighting powers. Like me."

She was a lot stronger in this life. Of course, this world was a lot more dangerous.

"There's actually a weird side effect of it," she went on. Ace stood at the edge of the trees. Kari wondered if he'd ever really left. "If you keep the Gold Sanctum active for too long, it starts to crystalize a mask over your face. It's shaped like a rabbit."

"That's really lame!" Luffy declared. Without Kari holding him still, his energy came right back and he started looking around them for trouble. Kari smiled.

"Yeah, it really is," she agreed. She hadn't kept the sanctum active long enough for anything more than a few crystals to grace her cheeks in this life, but the plan for her going away party required that she call the mask to her again. She didn't want to, but it was for the best.

Kari caught Ace's gunmetal grey eyes and smiled at him. His cheeks went pink again and he looked away sharply.

What a cute kid!

"What um, what other Kings were there?" Ace asked. Kari was pretty sure he was just trying to distract her, but that was fine.

"In total, I think there were, let's see. One silver, one gold, three red, two blue, one green, one grey, two colorless… So, eleven? Three of them died in a Damocles Down."

"A what now?"

"A Damocles Down. It's, well each King manifests a giant sword over their heads when they use too much of their powers. The system that measures that power is a Weissman Level. That sword reflects their heart, and it can decay overtime. If a King loses his will to live, or becomes to emotionally compromised and loses control of their powers, the sword will fall and kill them and everyone in the surrounding area. The area is… about twice the size of this island."

Ace's mouth fell open.

"Yeah. Three kings died that way. Two of the Red Kings, and one of the blue. Although, the second Red King," the one still standing just out of the corner of her vision, watching her with gleaming amber eyes, "and the first Blue King were killed as the sword was falling, so I don't know if that really counts… well, whatever. The point is they have to be careful if they don't want to kill everyone around them."

"That… sucks. Who would want that kind of power?"

"Lot's a people," Kari shrugged. She dodged a sea gull Luffy, for some reason, chucked at her head. "Power is power, and there are a lot of people who want it just for the sake of it."

"That's stupid," Luffy said frankly. "Why get power if you don't have a reason for it? Like being Pirate King!"

Ace snorted and Kari shook her head. This boy.

"Because people are stupid," she said blandly. "And besides, the Slate chooses the King, whether they want the power that comes with it or not. It doesn't matter if they were actually born noble or if they came off the street. Hell, they don't even have to be boys. King is just a title assigned."

"I thought girl kings were queens," Ace frowned in confusion.

Kari snickered and slung an arm around his shoulders, drawing the warm boy to her.

"Queen is what you call the consort of the King. Like, I was the Queen of the Reds' second King. The third King was a girl, so if she got a boyfriend he would be her Queen. Or Consort, it's mostly a matter of preference for them."

Ace leaned into her, but he was stiff. Ever since he'd actually hit puberty he'd gotten weird about her. It was only a matter of time, but that didn't mean she liked that it had happened. Oh well.

"We should get to Lu before he falls," Ace said absently. Luffy was crouched on a log that was half floating in the water, his eyes fixed on a crab that was at the very end.

"That dumb ass. His crew is in for one wild ride," Kari shook her head fondly and let go of Ace, moving to grab Luffy before he fell in the water.

She was going to miss these two.

* * *

Kari wished, desperately, that being connected to a King was like being a Clansmen.

Clansmen always knew where their King was, their King was a beacon of light shining in the senses. Every sense told one where the King was. A whisper in the ear, a brush of wind on the skin, the smell of cardamom, cedar and ash, the taste of fire drew them to wherever Mikoto was. Before that her grandfather's golden light had radiated so brightly from the Center she never lost track of him, even after she left. The mark the King left was an internal compass that would bring their Clansmen back to them, no matter what.

When it came to the Silver King, the one who's name was no Adolf K. Weissman, she had no goddamn clue where to start looking.

So, Kari did the only rational thing she could think of.

She broke into Marine HQ.

'Broke in' was a bit of an overstatement. She got a uniform, hitched a ride on a ship with a bunch of fake transfer papers for someone named Kelly Green and walked right through the front door.

The thing about this world that made her life immensely harder, was the weird technology. She wasn't sure if it had something to do with the vast disconnect between islands preventing it from evolving the same everywhere or if the government was stifling its advancements in some places and encouraging it in others for fuck knew what reasons.

If they had computers, instead of goddamn snails, she could have just hacked in. She was no tech genius, but she had been trained to be the best of the best, a spy a soldier and a killer when she had to be. She could get past codes.

Here, she had to find the right room in all of files and look through goddamn everything.

She had gone through about twenty cardboard boxes crammed filled with files when the door to the room she was in opened. Kari glanced up to see the silhouette of a marine standing there, waved at him, and went back to what she was doing without another thought. If she acted like she was supposed to be here, there was a pretty high chance that no one would question her presence.

"Are you supposed to be in here?" the Marine asked. There were two of them, she realized, the first one she'd seen and the one that had just walked in.

"I hope so, or I've spent the last two hours looking through the wrong damn papers," she said frankly. She shoved the last file back in place, put the top on the box and shoved it away to open a new one. "Is there a card system to this that I'm missing?"

"No," the new arrival said frankly. "You're not from here."

"Just transfered," she confirmed, "From East Blue, under Garp."

A spasm ran through the first new marine. "Garp. How d'you like him?"

"He is a fine marine with an outstanding sense of justice," she recited blandly.

The man snorted. "How do you really feel?"

Kari looked up long enough to make a face like she'd bitten rind end into a lemon. The second marine, one with a shock of pale hair on top of his head, started hunting through the aisles. The storage room was crowded, the boxes were rarely labelled and those that were were shoddily done and hand written.

"Yeah, I get that a lot. People either hate the guy or would walk on hot coals to prove themselves to him. What are you looking for?"

Kari saw no reason not to tell him. She propper her chin in her hand, elbow on her leg.

"Anything that has to do either a silver sword floating in the sky."

"A what?" the first man said. His pale haired companion poked his head out of the stacks of boxes to look at her.

"File room seven," he said. "It showed up in North Blue and Admiral Akainu had a conniption when a submarine flew away."

Kari stared at him blankly, doing her best impression of a man smacked with a living lobster.

"Yeah," he said and went right back to whatever he was doing.

"Huh," Kari said. She put the lid back on and went about cleaning up after herself, for all the good it did. How did anyone get anything done here? She itched to tear it all apart and put it together in a way that made sense. "You said seven?"

"Yep."

Kari exited the room and went down the hall, intent on finding as much information as she could about her wayward King. There was still only one gold mark on her, nothing else would happen until it had manifested first.

So, the Silver King was in North Blue? That was a pretty vast place.

Kari had a lot of ground to cover. At least she wasn't on a time limit, immortality and all.

* * *

Ace looked over the stock pile of treasure tucked away under the tree. There were four people who knew where it was,where this tree, as dull as all the others in the jungle and just as infested with snakes and bears and fuck knew what else, was. Four people knew it existed. Himself, Sabo, Luffy and Kari.

Even though Kari was just as old as he and Sabo were he always counted her last. She was the last to join their little band of runaways, the final piece to their puzzle. She balanced the tree of them, two in these last six years, and her lack of presence threw him so out of balance he almost lost to Luffy earlier that day.

Sometimes he wondered what their lives would have been like if she hadn't gone running by them that day.

They would be poorer for it, that was certain. Not only because she was the best of them at collecting money, either.

Kari had taken none of it with her. She insisted that he and Luffy would need it more than she would if they were going to be pirates. Sabo had been swept off into the world of revolution before they could properly divvy up his share, and it wasn 't like they had a way to get it too him now.

Ace knew that, out of all of them, it was Luffy who was going to get into the most trouble. Luffy would need more money than the rest of them combined to get anywhere, with his luck.

So, one year after Kari vanished into the night with a kiss on his cheek and a bop to Luffy's nose, Ace took one quarter of the gold and picked up a tiny ship in the bay that he could sail on his own until he gathered his crew.

With his obnoxiously orange hat on his head (hat courtesy of Luffy, red beads courtesy of Kari and weird blue faces courtesy of a news coo that probably worked for Sabo) plopped on his head and a grin splitting his face Ace set out into the wide blue sea, leaving Luffy to fend for himself.

Ace wasn't worried.

Really, he wasn't.

It was just…

Luffy was trouble given a guileless face and maybe he was _concerned_ for the villagers who would have to put up with him for the next three years without Ace or Kari to temper his shenanigans.

Honest.

He wasn't afraid of what might eat his little brought when he wasn't there to save him. He wasn't! And he definitely wasn't worried that when Luffy finally set sail he would fall off the boat on day one and drown, pfft, that's ridiculous!

Ace absolutely, one hundred percent, was not worried about Luffy.

…

Shit.

* * *

Kari has suspected from the start that the Silver King wasn't in the marines, and now she was certain of it. If he was, the sightings would have been more frequent. Whoever she was chasing, and she didn't have a name or a face to stick to the Silver Sword that had manifested a total of four times in the last seven years, was smart enough to know that even if the power was cool the attention that came with it was less so.

The marine's weren't known for their kindness and a power that they didn't understand and, even worse, didn't possess was too dangerous for them let slip through her fingers.

That was how she'd ended up here, of all places.

The room was dim with smoke, not all of it tobacco, and a light in the corner flickered ominously over the blackjack dealers head. Shance, a bartender who couldn't seem to decide which of his eyes was missing, was meticulously cleaning glasses that weren't even smudged while Trip, a bar-back kid with the same funny numbers attached to him that she'd only even seen on Luffy before, ran back and forth from a gathering of rather colorful individuals in oddly patterned pants and a group of men in suits on the other end of the bar.

Kari sat alone at the bar, a headband featuring cloth daisies holding her bands out of her eyes. A violet shawl fell off one shoulder to show off a gold geometry where the sleeveless white dress didn't cover. It also left bare her right forearm and hand. Both were covered in white bandages and throbbed painfully if she moved too much.

Her dark eyes swept over the room, levelled with disinterest. Once more she had hit a dead end and now she was sitting in a bar, not even trying to get drunk, just killing time before her newest ship, bound for Logue Town.

The sightings had ended a year ago, and with nothing left to go on (no street corner camera's, no eye witnesses that could say more than 'black hair, silver eyes', no trails left behind) she had nothing else to do but go off looking for Ace. He had started his journey a year ago, and now she was getting word that he'd been trying to hunt down _Whitebeard_ of all people.

She wanted to see how that turned out.

So, with a glance at the men on both ends of the bar she stood up, left her money, and swept past a young man with absurd teeth and green hair who looked her over without an ounce of shame.

She paused in her passing, offered him a half quirked smile and sauntered out. There was a beat before he clattered to follow her.

She could put her trip off one more day.


	9. Where the Sky Meets the Sea

Kari brought herself up next to the _Moby Dick_ on a fine august day some weeks later. Paradise was aptly named, she'd run into little trouble sailing and even the New World was only a little bit more difficult, if she was cautious and generous with her activation of the Gold Sanctum.

By the time she hopped up on the rail guards gold crystals had started forming, framing her nose. cheeks, and rising towards her dark hair.

She hopped up from the little skiff she had commandeered on an island a ways off, caught a hand on the rail and planted her feet on the deck. She came nose to nose with a sleepy eyed man with spiking blond hair and an open shirt.

"Hello," Kari blinked first.

The man looked her over. There wasn't much to see. She was unarmed, her chokuto, Ryujin, lay in the tiny boat she'd exited. Ryujin was a good, solid blade. She'd picked it up on the same island she met Bartolomeo, and accidentally incurred the favor of the kingpin upon. Who knew that the night he took her home was the night someone set up a bomb to try and kill him?

Besides that she was in a blue skirt, her loose long black sleeves hung off of her shoulders until they almost obscured her hands. All of this was offset by a red sleeveless hoodie that matched the headband wrapped around her hair.

She looked less a pirate and more like a plain girl, besides the mark on her shoulder and the scar on her throat.

"Hey," the man didn't move away from her. She didn't blame him. She hadn't exactly been stealthy in her approach, which meant she was on of three things. Stupid, strong, or harmless.

"I'm looking for Portgas D. Ace. Is he around?"

She had to fight to keep her fingers from crushing the railing under her. She'd almost had an aneurysm when she found out what had gone down with Ace's fight with Jimbei, and as soon as she learned where he'd been spirited off to she had torn after him with speed that put riptides to shame.

She had only slowed when she reached Fishman Island and started hearing things about Whitebeard that belayed what she had heard before. That he was not cruel or vicious or anything of the like. That, while selfish and a pirate, he was a good man, a strong leader, and loved his crew more than anything. He was a father.

So here she was, more willing to do things peacefully than she had been before. Her other plans, black ops, fist fights and everything between, were set aside for one that might result in less pain and risk.

"What do you want him for?" the man, who she could swear was familiar, inquired. She didn't get to answer.

"Kari?!"

Both of them looked over to see Ace standing on an upper deck, holding a battle axe in hand. He had grown. Damn, he was way taller than she was now.

Just seeing him was enough to ease the breath out of her lungs. She hopped up onto the railing, storming towards him with a ferocity that had a path cleared. Fearsome pirates threw themselves out of the way. Whitebeard didn't do anything more than watch her from his throne, towering high above everyone around him. His eyes were sparkling.

Someone tried to draw a sword but a glare from her was enough for them to drop it.

"Portgas Delorean Ascension!" she barked. Ace burst into laughter. He set the axe on the ground and opened his arm of her. The anger melted away and she fell into his embrace, locking her arms around him.

"You worried me you shit head!" she scolded. "Are you crazy?"

"I'm fine," Ace huffed. Kari was one hundred percent sure that if it was anyone else he would have been much more awkward about the hug, but she and Luffy had broken him of that long ago. Ace squeezed her and kissed her cheek. Her heart soared. "And if anyone's crazy it's you. You can't just sail up next to a pirate ship like that! They could have shot you down!"

Kari snorted. "I would burn this boat and everyone on it first." She pulled back and smiled to herself when she saw the bright pink dusting Ace's cheeks.

"Those are big words for such a little girl," one of pirates sauntered up towards her. He towered above her head, looking down his nose at the young woman. Kari propped her hand on her hip and gave him a once over. Even without seeing his Shatter Points she knew she could take him. There were a number of people on the boat that she was more doubtful of, but this guy struck her as a grunt instead of someone to actually worry about.

"Yep," she agreed blandly.

"Ace, do you want to introduce us to your friend?" a man in white came up behind the hulking person. Kari wondered how much product he'd stuck in his hair that morning to get it that tall. There was a sword on either hip.

Ace dropped his hand to her shoulder and turned her to face them fully. Kari was loath to let go of him, but she went with it.

"Yeah. This is Kari. She's my fiance," Ace said proudly.

There was a clatter as half the boat fell over.

" _FIANCE?!"_

Kari elbowed him lightly. "I never said yes to you."

"You didn't say yes to Lu or Sabo either," he pointed out. Kari snorted before she sobered.

"So… you're here. Not chained up or nothing. Why?"

Ace tilted his head towards the mammoth of a man sitting on deck, watching the pair of them. There was a wide grin on his face. Whitebeard didn't even have a beard.

"I'm going to take that mans head."

Kari looked at Ace, then Whitebeard, then the battleaxe on the deck and sighed. This boy.

"You make a pretty shit assassin, love of mine. Want help?" she offered. The guy that called her 'little girl' stiffened and took a step towards her. Ace waved his hand at her flippantly.

"Nah. This is between him and me. It's a fight between men."

"I had a feeling you'd say that," she shook her head and made her way towards the captain. THere were so many people around her that she couldn't even begin to describe each of them. She quietly marked each of them as 'annoying to fight' and 'not fight'. The only one she thought of as 'dangerous' was Whitebeard himself. She looked up at him, eyes blackening as she took in his shatter points. He was still human, but his numbers were the highest she'd ever encountered. Higher than Garps, even.

Kari couldn't tell if she was excited or scared.

She bowed towards him. "Thanks for putting up with Ace's bullshit."

A laugh boomed loud enough it almost knocked her off her feet. She looked up at Whitebeard, and was surprised despite herself when he was smiling down at her. She was struck with the most bizarre thought that he reminded her of a father she hadn't known in decades.

Her throat tightened.

"Um," she said.

"So you've known Ace a while then?" Whitebeard asked. Kari nodded.

"Yes. I've known him since he was a little punk instead of a _taller than me dick!_ " she shot the last few words at Ace, who puffed up, looking utterly smug. She'd been taller than the boys for most of their life. Being shorter was… disappointing.

"So you know all of his embarrassing childhood memories, right?" the blond that had met her at the railing strolled up to Whitebeards side.

Kari started to grin.

"Oh, yeah. I know. Them all."

Ace stared at her in horror.

"Traitor!"

Kari just laughed.

* * *

Kari cracked her neck from side to side. Her dark eyes narrowed ever so slightly, shadowing her iris' with lashes that had grown long and full. Strapped to her hip Ryujin hummed with energy. There was something about the sword that she didn't fully understand. It was old. Old, and powerful, and strong.

Ace stood before her, a cocky grin lighting up his face. It was as familiar as breathing to Kari. As was the way he stood, feet apart and heels lifted, his knees bent and his hands hovering. Perfect, just as she'd taught him.

He moved.

Kari twisted out of the way, spinning around the outside of Ace's arm. She caught his wrist, planted her palm on the back of his head and slammed him onto the deck of the _Moby Dick_. Her hand went through his neck and slammed into wood, scraping her knuckles. Fire swirled around her wrist, holding an inch apart from her skin.

Kari's eyes blackened. She sucked in sharply. Ace's numbers had changed. There was a number there that she had never understood before. One that she hadn't connected the dots on before.

"You ate a devil fruit," she realized.

The fire slunk away from her, reforming into a human a few feet away. He grinned at her.

"Fire type, you can't touch me now!" he crowed. Kari narrowed her eyes. It was pride that drove her to lunge at Ace, abandoning the perfect gold and the practiced stances for something low and hard and unrefined. Flames licked across Ace's skin but this time Kari was ready. He was the wrong type for this.

She hit him hard with a fist covered in fire that had no gold or orange, just red, sending the boy arching over the deck. He skidded to a stop and sat up slowly, rubbing his jaw. They'd already had an audience, but now it had doubled. Ace, and everyone else watching, stared at her with open mouths and wide eyes.

"How- that wasn't Haki!" Ace pointed at her. Kari cocked her head.

"What's Haki?" she asked, "I told you, I was the Red Queen. Fire's a part of that, love."

"No, no, no, no," one of the other Whitebeard pirates walked over and started shooing the pair of them. "No more fire on the ship. We are not lighting it on fire. No!"

Kari rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine, no fire. Come on, Ace, swords."

"No swords either," the same man objected. "You're both insane! Wait until we're on an island at least!"

Kari rolled her head on her shoulder, blase. "As long as its uninhabited."

"The boat isn't uninhabited!" he screamed. Kari blinked at him blandly.

"No," she agreed, "But if you die because the two of us are playing around, you're not a very good pirate."

Ace threw his arm, warm and still half fire, around her shoulder, laughing loudly. Kari's heart beat harder and she grinned, leaning into him gladly. She had missed him. She missed all of her boys.

"Hey, Ace," she turned her face into his shoulder, eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks. "Let's visit Sabo this year, okay?"

"Sabo?" Ace's voice softened. "Yeah. That sounds fine to me."

"But first," he added, "I have to kill Whitebeard."

Kari rolled her eyes. Ace was good, but the numbers didn't add up. There was no way that he would win, not unless he stooped to levels she knew damn good and well that he wouldn't.


	10. Gold Crowns

**This is the last chapter before I start revealing some of the kings! Any last guesses for who the gold king is, cast them in now.**

* * *

It happened when they were sitting down for dinner.

The pair of them had stolen food from the kitchen (A lose word, it was let go freely but Ace was paranoid) and hidden away from the rest of the crew, in a little hidey-hole that Ace had found when he'd first been brought aboard. It was tucked into a wall that was rarely passed but had a view of the ocean, and an easy escape. Good for paranoid people.

Ace had fallen asleep against her shoulder, totally limp, and Kari dutifully guarded his food for him whilst she ate hers. At first, she almost didn't notice. This feeling was not the foreign one that had raced across her skin so many years ago, an aura she had never known. This was prosperity, it was gilded gold that dripped across her skin, shimmering and cold on the back of her left shoulder.

The only reason she noticed at all was because, without her say so, her skin was abruptly sparkling with a pale light like sunshine.

She looked down at her hand, the rush of power that followed after making her heedy and full of strength, stronger that one. Stronger than ten. Stronger than a hundred men.

It was gone as soon as it had come, but Kari knew it for what it was.

The Gold King had been chosen.

Kari felt her stomach sink. She had spent years searching for the Silver king, and now Gold was chosen and she was no closer to her goal. She was using up her time visiting her boys and squandering her resources making social calls.

 _Squandering?_ Mikoto asked. He sat, in the corner of her sight, on the deck rails. Smoke trailed up from the ember at the tip of his cigarette. Kari tried not to look at him head on. It still hurt, the loss of everything. _Kaida, Golden Girl, have you forgotten what I asked you to do?_

Kari's head squeezed.

 _I can't,_ she thought. _I have to find them. I have to protect them._

 _Kaida. You promised me two things. One when you came to me, asking me to save Anna. And another when I lay dying, and you came to me._

Kari wanted to cry. She shook her head. She knew she had made a promise but that one was so, so much harder than vowing never to be afraid. She didn't know how she was supposed to keep it.

The red mark on the back of her hand, a bright flame that danced in the dimness of the moon cast across the sea, heated and warmed her skin. The warmth of Ace's body curling against her ebbed away the gold that came with the Gold. She wondered what this mark would take the form of. A silver heart, a red flame, and the old gold shaped across her shoulder in interlocking geometry with a complicated flower in the middle.

She looked up when someone approached. Shifted minutely closer to her boy.

The person who approached was the man from the kitchen, a commander. He had no devil fruit, but his numbers were high. He was strong and his Shatter Points were small. He had an easy smile and an old school hairdo. The two swords that he kept strapped to his sides were absent.

Kari relaxed minutely.

"He doesn't sleep very often," the man said. Kari's brows furrowed minutely. Ace had had narcolepsy for most of his life. He went to sleep every night at nine o'clock at night and got up again at five thirty in the morning, when he took ritalin and nortriptyline. At two in the afternoon he took a nap for twenty minutes. He had been managing it since he was twelve years old.

If he wasn't sleeping, he was going to aggravate his symptoms and if he fell on a boat he might just die. Kari was going to kill him.

But he had to have a reason for it, so she didn't mention his narcolepsy to this stranger.

"I don't think I got your name," Kari said, instead of anything else. Ace's breath changed but he didn't move. When she looked down she could see the smallest twitches of his fingers. He was stuck. Kari ran her fingers up his back gently. She hoped there were no hallucinations this time.

"Thatch," he introduced. "How long have you known Ace?"

"I dunno," Kari shrugged minutely, jostling him. "Forever and a half. Since we were little kids. I think he was six? Seven?"

"How'd you meet?" Thatch asked. He eyed Ace, who was still frightfully still.

"I was mad, I ran into the woods, I killed something and he was there. "

"...Sorry, what?" Thatch looked ready to laugh.

"I don't know, that's just what happened! "

"And when did he propose?" Thatch's smile spread into a grin. Kari rolled her eyes.

"I think he was ten."

Thatch snorted and started laughing. Kari rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

"He's a dork," she said fondly. An elbow abruptly dug into her side.

"I can hear you!" Ace finally lifted his head. If he was a little pale, she didn't comment on it. Kari bopped him on the nose fondly.

"I know," she said cheerfully. "Get off me, I need to pee."

Ace grunted and peeling himself away, letting her up. She patted his hand and nodded to Thatch. "I'll be back soon."

Now that Ace was awake and alert enough Kari left him behind. Thatch would do him no harm. If anyone here wanted to hurt him, they would have done it already. Kari picked her way through the ship until she found where Ace had stuffed his baggage. Not hard, when you'd known him his entire life. It was in an old broom closet, with Ace's things in a hole in a wall and a clutter of what normally people called trash, but her and her boys knew to be useful. Old ropes, cracked pots and broken knives.

Kari dug through his bag and, just as she'd feared, the bottles were empty. And Ace wouldn't willingly tell anyone here about his condition. _Fuck_.

Kari ran her fingers through her short black hair, tugging the hairband free. She turned it nervously over in her hands. She was going to have to pick him up some at the next island they were at.

Goddamn these boys. Where was Sabo? He was the sensible of them!

* * *

After chewing Ace out for a solid two hours Kari left him to plan his next 'assassination' attempt. Strong they may be, but subtle? Her boys were about as subtle as a brick in the face. Sabo could try, but he was extra and had a flare for the dramatic.

Not that Katja Glows-In-A-Fight Kari had much room to talk.

They were _all_ shit.

Kari shook the thoughts from her mind as she walked through the hallways of the massive ship. The _Moby Dick_ , which she still wasn't over the name of, was a colossal vessel, fit for an emperor and large enough to carry much of his extended family. It wasn't hard for Kari to find Whitebeards room. It wasn't really guarded, but there were nurses who came in and out regularly, and only a fool could miss it.

Kari knocked politely on the door. He didn't have guards. Why would the strongest man in the world need them?

"Come in," came the voice of the old man. Kari opened the door and stepped inside. He was laid up on a massive bed, with tubes and wires poking out of his arms and nose. It was strange. Legends were told about this man, and here he was. Old. Sick. Hooked up to machines, like her own grandfather had been so many, many years ago.

"Ah," Whitebeard smiled at her. "Ace's fiance."

"I still haven't said yes," she told him mildly. She shut the door behind her and went to his bedside. She felt small, like a child next to him. It was strange.

Whitebeard laughed, one that shook the room along with him.

"What are you doing here, little girl?" he asked, looking down at her. His eyes were kind.

"I've been asking around," Kari said, "And everyone says that you want to make Ace your son. Is that right?"

Whitebeard nodded towards her. "It is."

"Good. I'm Glad. Ace is… he's one of my best friends. He's mine, and I can't- I can't protected him, and I can't look after him like I did when we were kids. So I would appreciate it if you would. He's got a chip on his soldier from his biological father. So please be patient with him," she bowed to him, almost perpendicular to the ground.

When she looked up, he was laughing again.

"You don't need to be so formal, or to ask such silly favors. If he is my son I will love him as a part of my family. It's that simple."

Slowly, a smile spread across her lips and a weight lifted itself from her shoulders.

"Then I'll entrust him to you."

She left him then, going off to find a bathroom. She tried to use a mirror to see what was on her shoulder, but all she could see was something that looked a little like a crown with two holes in it. It was in the exact wrong place for her to be able to see what was on it.

Maybe Mikoto was right. Maybe she should just give up this quest and stay with her family. Luffy would be just setting out right about now, if she hurried she might even catch him before he got to reverse mountain. _If_ she was lucky. All the way in the Grandline, it was a long ways to East Blue.


End file.
